His Incessant Cleaning Of The Wiki

["His" being FrancisHwang's, originally, may he clean forever!]

Does anyone else wish that it would just stop!

Does anyone remember what wiki was like before you could delete pages?

Does anyone really think wiki is a better place for all the deletion that has been going on?

Yes [30]
No [8]

Supposedly, it increases the probability of finding useful content, and decreases the probability of wasting time with useless content.

I've yet to see any deletions or edits by Francis that I would disagree with. You are shouting loudly, but despite being requested have provided no examples and have provided no way to get in touch to discuss this. No, I don't remember what it was like before deletes were possible, but I can't see anything wrong with what's happening. Feel free to contact me if you would care to discuss this in email.

My examples will come from links to this page. It's not just Francis. The examples are not the point. It really frustrates me that it's happening at all. Should we really have to check every one of the deletions just to check that some gem deemed irrelevant has been lost.

The PoMo one is a good example. Does anyone remember wondering what this means. As far as accusations of being OffTopic, perhaps consider that Wiki itself is quintessentially PoMo. (Note: PoMo has since been deleted, with references changed to PostModernism)

Another reason this one was a good example is that it was not Francis, and also that there was a reference elsewhere on wiki suggesting that the page not be deleted.

Actually the page was originally created when I asked what PoMo was, and the deletion was me tidying up after myself. Most references have now been fixed and I thought the time had come to let people decide what they wanted it to look like. Deleting the page meant people would either put it back or fix the references, so I was letting them decide.

I think that the constant deletions results in a different feel to the Wiki than there used to be. In my opinion it results in a less friendly atmosphere, especially when RecentChanges shows the deletion of a whole slew of personal pages.

I think it's a richer place with people spending more time understanding the wiki before leaping in with vast amounts of drivel.

It also would be nice to have some time limits enforced on deletion so that a page cannot be deleted within, say, a week of the last edit and that confirmation of a delete must be made at least a week later. I have personally edited a page, only to come back next day to find the page deleted.

But the time limit is dangerous for people who are not familiar with Wiki and create private pages here (WikiSquatting, WalledGardens, ...). If their page(s) gets edited/deleted really quickly, they will notice and perhaps look for other solutions. Wait a week gives them time to put some real work into those pages - work which gets lost. Deleting quickly minimizes the pain.

Personally, I'd be okay with a one-week deletion confirmation limit. The initial delete is usually shocking enough to a newcomer (the kind of person most likely to create a private page here) that they either a) stop and think and read relevant material to figure out what's being said or b) get really angry and start shouting a lot. A one-week delay on confirming a delete wouldn't really change that. (And most newbies don't seem to know the EditCopy is there, anyway.) -- francis

-- (I am still a newbie at 1.5 years on wiki, I knew this function existed, but just learned the implementation. Thanks Francis! MarkDilley)

If people feel that a page is completely off topic, it's more polite to leave a message on the top of the page explaining why the Wiki users think this, and what the creator of the page can do about it. This is how I've seen people deal with the issue before. Explicit, summary deletion has only been necessary when the creators of an off-topic page ignored the polite messages and offers of assistance.

Here's another example that got me a little riled. Some of the better trained, or smarter gnomes know about the fairly simple ways of making sure that a page won't get restored. A couple of days back (now == 2002/11/23), there was an example where the random pages script pointed to a deleted page!

Now how could this possibly occur if the gnomes stick to the rules of fair play? If someone wants me to name names, leave a note.

The page was probably noticed as unneeded, and so deleted, after it appeared as a randomly selected page. Why should that rile you?

Because it's the action of a single individual, behaving as if they've been annointed by the one and only. Remember that it's WardsWiki, not yours, with many thousands of contributors.

It's never 'a single individual'. It takes two to delete a page. And you're right, it's WardsWiki, and Ward designed wiki to work this way and has supported this kind of maintenance enthusiastically in the past, and ... why were you complaining again?

And how exactly is the wiki supposed to clean itself without individuals who take the initiative? The reason nobody's been anointed is because wiki maintenance is everybody's job.

I've been lurking around here for a long time. I've noticed a lot of angry people being angry and doing dumb things. Well, I like that people talk about it. Have you noticed that? We all talk about it, even if we disagree. That's what I like about it. There's stuff that was useful and not useful, deleted and not deleted, but whatever! I have learned so much from this place... so much. And it's not any one person -- writer or deleter -- who is responsible for that.

Please StopHarassingTheGnomes

CategoryWikiMaintenance CategoryWikiHistory