What and odd and amusing experience. I need to write that up someday, including the on-air public radio interview that almost happened as a result.

http://www.computers.net/2007/01/encyclopedia_br.html

Just wonder where that might fit into your conversation here…

If you have an account at Wikipedia and would like to discuss the questions that you raise concerning how Wikipedia operates openly to the benefit of all users, then I’d be glad to show you around on the site. Just add a new note to my User Talk page by clicking the link to “Start a new talk topic” near the top and I’d gladly point you to the pertinent pages.

As for some basics that you bring up in your most recent comment:

1) Anyone can and should in good faith create an article for deletion (AfD) discussion for any article that they have concluded does not meet the guidelines of the encyclopedia.

2) It is a 3-step process (tag the article, give your reasoning on the appropriate page for AfD discussions, add the article title to a daily log of discussions).

3) Anyone else is then able to add their conclusions as to the fitness of the article for the encyclopedia and either reinforce or refute the original nomination (or even blaze a new path in the discussion such as deletion for an entirely different reasoning). All of this takes place on that discussion page setup in the second step of the AfD nomination (and is readily linked from the article’s page). Some people will look through the AfD log (setup in step 3) to contribute to any or all of the current discussions in order to help improve the encyclopedia.

4) After a minimum of 5 days (and a minimum of community feedback or else the discussion will be relisted), a closing independent administrator will read through the discussion and determine the best course of action. This isn’t final, there is a process for review of administrative decisions and the deletion process can always be restarted for an article (although the first discussion is not lost and frequently a “kept” article would really need a novel argument for deletion or to have heavily degraded in order to be deleted on future nominations).

Finally, the system isn’t perfect. Some might feel that I jumped the gun on this nomination. It wasn’t my first nomination nor was it the first nomination that resulted in a kept article (although every article I have nominated that resulted in being kept was substantially improved before the end of the AfD discussion to the benefit of the encyclopedia). Others may consider certain subjects to be notable even though consensus found that the article should be deleted. In most cases, an article can easily be reestablished and hopefully its new incarnation will meet the criteria according to consensus. In one case, I rescued an article that was deleted due to copyright violations and reestablished it and it may soon be listed as a Good Article (due to meeting certain criteria for good writing, sourcing, and encyclopedic nature).

I disagree with your assessment of Wikipedia’s openness. I joined the site meaningfully in June 2006 without any information on acronyms, etc. and I now have over 1000 article edits and 3000 total edits across all of the different areas of the website from maintenance and vandalism prevention to article improvement, template discussion, and even policy discussion. The learning curve is not so steep and there is always someone (admin as well as just another editor) available to help clear up any issues with procedure or etiquette. I didn’t do anything special other than take a bit of interest in improving the encyclopedia for everyone (including those like yourself who simply choose to use it for DIY help or topical information and not edit to this point). In my patrolling of new pages and recent edits, I see new editors all of the time who share that same interest and when I go back to only June and revisit some of my old conversations with editors newer than me, I find that their latest contributions are on par with what I’m also now able to accomplish to help the project overall. This all suggests to me that Wikipedia is as open as it can be in its current form (and becoming more open and inviting all the time…some of the recent additions from more involved community members and the WikiMedia software developers make it even easier to get started and see how to contribute).

I would liken it to an open door in a glass wall. It wouldn’t be much of a door without any sort of wall to pass through, but it is open and the other side is hardly a darkened room. You certainly don’t have to enter and you can easily observe and comment from the side you’re currently on, but it’s also not so hard to step in and look around to see what it looks like without the glass between you and the room.

As I began, you or other commenters here are welcome to ask me about getting started on the website if you’d like to improve the encyclopedia. That’s about as open as I can make it for you. Sorry for the length of the comment, but I wanted to address some of your comments and concerns and I’m not sure that I’ll be returning to maintain any sort of dialogue here. Take care.

–Karl

I didn’t say the editor didn’t deserve flame roasting on your blog. He should have used the {{notability}} or {{unreferenced}} maintenance tags to draw attention to the article for the purpose of improving it, rather than nominating it for deletion.

Google Adwords isn’t very transparent either, and you need a lot of specific knowledge to run a successful campaign. The SEO community doesn’t know nearly as much about Wikipedia as they should.

The decision to keep the article was made by me. I looked at the comments and saw that there was a clear consensus, so I closed the debate. That’s how Wikipedia works, all volunteer driven.

It’s natural that you wouldn’t want to contribute to Wikipedia directly, because you have other opportunities. As an authority in the field, your comments are frequently original thought. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not a place to publish original thought and research. It’s a place to gather thoughts that have already been published elsewhere. That’s the value on an encyclopedia, bringing together information that’s spread all over the place to form a concise overview of a topic. Once you have published, Wikipedia editors can then cite your work as a reliable source. Does that make sense?

-Jonathan

As for roasting the editor, I debated that and honestly figured he had it coming. The stuff I dug up? A search on Google brings that stuff up. If the article wasn’t properly sourced, as I said, rather than a debate on killing it, some basic research should be done first. It wasn’t hard to find this material.

I did see his comment that he was disappointed I didn’t just add the material myself. Why would I do that? I’m not going to waste my time adding to a page that someone else might decide the next day to rip apart according to rules and a culture that frankly is anything but transparent.

I mean, it’s difficult to know how the article was “nominated” in the first place. Then who exactly inspired the debate to kill it. And now that the vote has gone as it should, who made that vote? I mean, we were told it’s not a voting thing but that there’s a discussion, then I gather editors all make it happen. Where?

Wikipedia makes a lot about how open it is, but as an outsider, all I can say is that it feels very closed and difficult to know. It’s riddled with acronyms and insider talk. I actually felt the comment about the ODP was pretty close to the mark.

I really do like Wikipedia as a resource. I use it all the time and find it remarkable at how helpful it is. But as I said, then you get something like this, and you just lose faith in it.

and as for Matt Cutts being notable – George Bush’s official page has 11,800 inlinks (top listing in both G and Y! for the term george bush – broad match), and here’s is his wiki listing http:// en . wikipedia.org/wiki/George_W._Bush …

Matt’s blog has more than 100,000 inlinks… but he apparently isn’t worthy of a page – despite the fact that in the online community millions of people have read his blog, know of him, and know exactly what he does… I’m still not sure exactly what it is Mr Bush does… not having a go at him or anything – but Matt’s pretty clear about what he does, and why, and he has big time pull online, and as he is ostensibly in control (at least partly) of over 4 billion websites show-or-no-show status on the web, and has the ability to bring down sites and destroy online business – or build it – I would say that’s pretty BIG pull.. but the wiki chappie reckons he’s not notable… *snort*