User:Rgb9000

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hello!

This is my userpage. I don't really know what to put here, so I'll keep it simple.

I'm getting a little peeved at the constant assault on articles that I like. It's either images up for deletion or discovering that articles have been deleted before I can reach them, or even entire groups on the chopping block. Images are especially a hot point right now, with all the complications thereof. I also see more and more Webcomics being proposed for deletion. Is there some space issue I don't know about? Since wiki is not paper, why must any worthwhile content be deleted? Why is WP turning into a popularity contest with the need for constant defense of worthwhile material? Wikipedia was a lot more fun and a lot easier to use a few years ago...

[edit] Basic Info

I am from the United States. I am a huge wikipedia fan. (I hope to become a sysop someday) I primarily use it to look up information, which I do on a near-daily basis. I only rarely make edits, when I feel that an article would truly be made better by my contribution, but I'm trying to be a little more active. I am a bit of a computer nerd, I am very knowledgable of hardware and software, and spend most of my free time gaming on my computer or browsing the internet.

[edit] Philosophy

I am against the deleting of materials on Wikipedia except in the most extreme and obvious cases. I have seen 2 articles that I worked on and thought were excellent articles (Space Tree and Totalgaming.net) get deleted. Often the reason given is "Not notable"... but who can be the judge of that? What is notable and obvious to some is not notable and obvious to all. Yes, the average person may not have heard of Space Tree, and many voted to delete on that ground, but it was on the Keentoons network, it had a large fan following, with an entire forum and sub-wiki dedicated to the cartoon! HomestarRunner, a similar webtoon has it's own page. Also, the article was quite long and developed, not something thrown together unprofessionally overnight. Same goes for Totalgaming.net. Good article, lots of info, very useful, etc, but apparently not as prolific as Steam (Content delivery), its competitor, which still has it's artcle. The goal of wikipedia should be that of combining human knowledge, not censoring and having popularity contests constantly. Personally, I think that you should ask yourself this question before proposing anything for deletion: "Does the existence of this content cause me harm?" If you answer no, then leave it. I see people fighting passionatly to delete things that have nothing to do with them, and it amazes me to see the hate and poisoned words flow from their keyboards. That said, I do realize that some articles are so bad they should never have been posted to begin with. IE articles that are clearly defamatory, vandalism, illegal, or contain 1 or 2 sentences with no edits for months are possible candidates. Aside from these, I think that too much time is spent debating the deletion information that is truly useful (if even to some) that could be spent bettering other things. I also think that past contributors for an article should be notified if some of their work is up for deletion.

I am also against those who speak out against wikipedia. A few people come to mind, but I won't mention any names lest they get any attention. People who complain about the content are not part of the solution, they are part of the problem. The people who spend hours tirelessly combing wikipedia looking for errors and spend their time correcting things and adding good information are the unsung heroes of wikipedia.