User talk:67.187.38.109

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[edit] Re:Non-deletionism

I could talk your ear off about this, but I don't know if you will see this message. The problem is not necessarily content-related but rather a development issue. All categories can be viewed as a list and all lists as categories. An interface designed for the user would allow one to switch between the two. This could be expanded to include a timeline view, as well as a summary style view, making separate lists and categories obsolete. As for deletion debates, it is important to remember that they are arbitrary constructs that exist to cover up the underlying problem. For example, half of all deletion debates could be avoided merely by requiring a user to enter at least two categories when they create an article. During the creation process, a new article could be checked for duplicates, copyrights, and accuracy from the very first edit, and some bots have begun doing this. So you see, the problem is with the underlying framework; deletion debates steal valuable time that could be better spent writing articles. It's also a centralized approach, which doesn't work. WikiProjects should be in charge of maintaining their articles, and at least one parent or child project should participate in the debate to make sure there is no COI. Most of the problems we have are not due to poor articles, but to a system which allows those articles to exist in the first place. If the user had more control over how to view the data, we would not even be having this discussion. The complexity of namespaces, policies and guidelines, and the lack of decentralized administration is to blame. There is very little difference between an article, a category, and a list, and until an effort is made to allow the user to choose the view from the frontend, we will continue to talk about this. It might help to think about Wikipedia visually to see what I am talking about. An average article is nothing more than a collection of related links. This is true for lists and categories. So if I am reading an article about a certain genre of music, I should be able to quickly convert this view to a timeline, a chart comparing other genres, a list of bands related to that genre, or a category. We know that people want this, but nobody is willing to develop it. So instead we have useless deletion debates about lists vs. categories, and articles that need merging and redirecting and all the rest. These are just symptoms of the problem. If you just allow readers to control the way they view the data, there's really nothing to debate. —Viriditas | Talk 05:28, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

The variables are actually quite small. We already know that users want to view information in these forms:
  • Article
  • Category
  • List
  • Timeline
  • Chart
  • Other media (images, sound, video)
We also know that these forms are composed of the same data, except the presentation changes in each instance. Giving the user the ability to manipulate the presentaton of this information in whatever form they desire is the key. The goal is to eventually allow secure queries again so we can compare and extract data into user-created views. —Viriditas | Talk 05:47, 8 March 2008 (UTC)