VanishedUser sdu9aya9fs787232

re: deletion fiasco

Please see my user page. I'm sorry I made so many people angry :(!

You shouldn't give up that easy. Internet communities use to get offended by controversial changes — and you will feel that (you already did), even when the unsatisfied people form extremely small fraction of whole community; even when most of the community don't care. Personally, as a programmer, I'd delete all those pages you nominated. Maybe I am a bad and unexperienced programmer because I heard none about the languages, but if I'd need to work with them, I'd google their name, and read the project page. And when in the search results I see Wikipedia article about the language, happily click the link, and see two and a half scant paragraphs plus a bunch of useless links which In No Way Cannot Be Found On Google — I get upset. I get upset about the hard position of Wikipedia with its vague notion of notability, and about the power of internet communities which allows them to stop people like you. --91.202.128.113 (talk) 11:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

There's nothing wrong with stubs; it's how every page starts. Given that most pages will contain a link to the project page, it's not particularly taxing on your time to read the quick blurb on Wikipedia. In many cases, that's all people will be looking for: a very brief "what the hell is this, anyway?" explanation. Throwaway85 (talk) 13:18, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

So are you going to add them back? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.255.227.52 (talk) 14:17, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

That's not how it works. He personally did not delete them; he merely nominated them for deletion. Anyone arguing, in fact, could have easily saved them. (Presumable he didn't use Speedy Delete.) There'll be a list of entries he nominated for deletion around somewhere. 69.49.44.11 (talk) 14:24, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

And that's why it's not a good idea to run around marking things AfD. I personally didn't even know these were up for deletion, it's not like I need to look at the page on <insert language> every single day. But today I did, and it's gone, apparently forever until somebody reconstitutes the entire work. I wonder how many man-hours of effort that were put into these pages just got deep-sixed? It's pretty clear by this case and many others that the procedure for deletion is tragically broken broken broken. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.63.37.26 (talk) 17:57, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Christopher, it'd be helpful if you stepped in and helped undo the damage you've done by restarting the pages and start populating them with information again. Elblanco (talk) 18:52, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

You are aware that WP:N is a guideline (as in, "not a rule") correct? Elblanco (talk) 19:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Coda

You may want to read this to get an appreciation of why people may have felt so strongly about the subject: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2008/06/15/Deletionist-Morons

Essentially, you tried (in good faith, it appears) to impose your view of notability on an entire class of articles. What you didn't realize is that Wikipedia has a lot of people who are biased towards deleting articles on subjects they know nothing about.

One other point, since I think it's relevant: blindly and strictly following the letter of the law is not always a good thing on Wikipedia (Improv's spree of deleting cookie articles comes to mind as the shining example of this). Learning to find the balance, rather than just attempting to robotically apply rules, is the key. Ubernostrum (talk) 06:49, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone might read the page on Nemerle one day and be inspired to extend it or create something truly wonderful. In many cases, domain-specific Wikipedia articles, besides being the product of hard work, represent the easiest point of entry to areas of knowledge that usually need to be paid for, say in the form of journal subscription fees that run into the thousands annually. The thought of losing that to a mindless bureaucracy is enough to make even ordinarily sane people say "lynch the bastard!" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.205.19.130 (talk) 06:47, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Thank you for considering the arguments of your opponents. Nowdays this seems by far the hardest thing and if everyone on the net could do as you decided to do - "troll" would again be the creature of fantasy.--193.29.204.3 (talk) 12:41, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Reddit

There's a big discussion going on about you at reddit. SeriousWorm (talk) 07:55, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

He's aware. Read his note on his user page. Calamity abated. Throwaway85 (talk) 10:36, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

The proper place to voice your disagreement with wikipedia's notability policy isn't here

It's here --ScWizard (talk) 08:20, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Good Try

Being a Deletionist on wikipedia ain't easy. You lost, but you gave it the good fight. Sorry to see what a shitstorm this molehill became. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.10.105.178 (talk) 10:51, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

There is nothing laudable about attempting to delete information out of ignorance. If whole communities are outraged at your actions, you by definition deleted something notable. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.69.155.193 (talk) 13:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Right, because it's really hard to get reddit outraged about something. Don't get me wrong, I'm against the spree too, but it's over now so let's cut out the pettiness, k? Throwaway85 (talk) 13:15, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

But, really, the guy above had a point. Wikipedia is not running short of space and deleting things only because they look not sufficiently OK (i.e. they did not satisfy Monsanto's criteria of noteworthiness) was a bad idea. --zanderredux (talk) 15:37, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

CM's criteria were a bit broad, but it was mostly a case of "is it sourced/sourceable". Some of the articles he nominated simply couldn't be sourced, others could. Throwaway85 (talk) 19:13, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Next time you feel like getting something deleted

you should start deleting useless content from pages that need deletion of useless content, instead of getting pages you think are useless deleted, since that's actually useful. Nobody seems to be doing it. 79.107.200.227 (talk) 14:44, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

How about just improving them?

Ouch!!!

		The Purple Star
		I'm sorry you became the victim of internet malice. Remember WP:SERIOUS. On the one hand we have people laughing at Wikipedia having articles about "stupid" non-notable topics and on the other we have people who feel that having an article on their favourite subject deleted from Wikipedia (note: not wiped off the face of the web, just deleted from Wikipedia) is a grave insult and a loss to the world. You can't please everybody. Slashme (talk) 14:58, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

A purple star is well deserved here. As I said, pointing out notability problems won't win you many friends, but you may gain the respect from some people. I'm not very proud of the scurrilous attacks that were made by my fellow net citizens. If they had put as much effort into the articles as they did into the comments, then maybe it would have been found that some articles were notable. The notability discussion is important to Wikipedia. Clearly defining notability for programming languages and software projects would help avoid this sort of unpleasantness in the future. Anyway, keep up the good fight! Cxbrx (talk) 02:13, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. Badzil (talk) 19:23, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Re: Dear internet, (Moved from userpage)

Mr. Monsanto,

I would send this as a private message, but I'm actually not sure how. (Also, you do not seem to have an e-mail listed on your Hacker News profile.)

I think it's important to note that, with respect to WP:N, your arguments for deletion were airtight, and remain airtight. For what it's worth, I apologize on behalf of the programmer and internet denizen community, of which I am a part, that ostracized you so thoughtlessly. I believe it came down to a problem of communication: What you said was, "According to WP:N, these ought to be deleted; the information contained within is useful, but it does not meet our conventional standards," and what they heard was, "According to any reasonable measure, these ought to be deleted; the information contained within is worthless." (I believe this is called "Seeing the world through rage-colored glasses." ... What, that's not a thing?)

Nominating the articles for deletion was not an error. If you erred in your "social responsibility"; I believe it would be with the same mistake that your detractors made: Failing to look past what people were saying, and responding to what they actually meant. I think that, in our heart of hearts, no one really believes that obscure programming languages are notable according to WP:N as it exists today. What we really mean to express is that they are notable according to programmers, and we want Wikipedia to consider that enough.

To that extent, I am glad that you are espousing a bigger picture, and are urging people to modify WP:N. I hope others--"deletionists" and "inclusionists" alike--will take a step back and understand the real scope of the debate. Faithfully following the rules is a perfectly valid choice, but in some situations--like this one--you can still end up on the wrong side of history.  :-)

Thank you for taking the time to express your opinion clearly and politely despite all the trolls and flamers. You have admirable patience. Max (talk) 19:30, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Hi, thanks for helping to resolve the situation. Regarding your comment, "why don't you work on fixing WP's notability guideline for programming languages?" I would like to invite you to channel your (otherwise-deletionist) energies toward this end, since you are likely best positioned to resolve it. We are mostly Wikipedia-ignorant Redditors and programmers, but you would be the perfect person to help this idea along to fruition. Thanks in advance for helping to undo the furtherance of the militant deletionist Wikipedia agenda that the rest of the Internet feels powerless to stop. We have faith in you! Strom (talk) 02:10, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Deletion nominations

I've been just recently noticing how much flack you've been getting for nominating a variety of non-notable programming languages for deletion, so I just came by to say one thing --

THANK YOU.

No, really. I think you've stepped up and done what a lot of other people wouldn't have the guts to do, and that is to just put your foot down and say, "You know, guys, this is just not notable." People just don't seem to understand that the fact that something is a programming language does not make it notable inandof itself.

If I had more time, I would do the same. Instead I just slap notability and unreferenced tags on the articles and leave them be. For your hard work, and for putting up with the sockpuppets, meatpuppets, and other general annoying wikiRiffraff that likes to harass good people who do good work -- thank you. (I would give you a purple barnstar but I see you already got one a few sections previous.)

Mûĸĸâĸûĸâĸû _(blah?) 08:46, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Hello

Just a quick hello from some who came across your user page at Talk:Programming language theory and some deletion nominations. I hope you decide to return to Wikipedia after having destressed a bit from recent events. Cheers, —Ruud 21:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)