User:M0llusk/Old stuff

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This user hacks happily with Emacs.

This is the Wikipedia:User page for M0llusk who is a Bear living in Northern California and advocate of the Oxford comma.

Having been a Wikipedian for some time it has come to my attention that the Wikipedia deletion process is out of control with many editors using poor logic, contradictory logic, sometimes no reasoning at all to swiftly delete pages which in some cases are put together with much work from multiple contributors and have references, evidence of good faith, and defenders. Out of control deletion is turning Wikipedia into a refuge for junk like All your base and Cum fart while worthwhile material is deleted and lost and potentially significant contributors are turned away. There is no point contributing to Wikipedia when any luddite can destroy anything for any reason. The ignorant and the haters have won, again.

Until the deletion process can be fixed I must limit my contributions to the deletion process and the restoration of the one page of mine which was most recently deleted, in my opinion by incorrect use of the already flawed deletion process. I encourage all other Wikipedians to reconsider giving their labor to an institution that is incapable of respecting work and will only accept what limited and dumbed down version of the truth ends up in watered down textbooks and television news reports targeted to the eighth grade level or below.

How many pages and how many wikipedians will have to be thrown away before this mess gets reigned in? What is the point of wikipedia being aggressively edited so as to sink to a lowest common denominator?


From before the deleters ruined Wikipedia for me:

Regarding Deconstructivism there are a number of comments regarding cost in general and as it relates to some specific projects where citations are expected. This is something I am making slow progress on. As it stands now there might be enough information for someone else to fill in the gaps. My recollection is of a number of sources, but the one book I tracked down so far (DECONSTRUCTION, Academy Press) does not have enough to meaningfully support my claim. Articles in Journals might be a better source, so to the library with this issue.

Intend to add some images of traffic calming in North Fair Oaks, California:

Speaking of Chokers, it looks like that stub needs work. These are restrictions of traffic to a narrowed path, usually one lane most often created with Curb extensions on both sides of the road.

Other stuff:

  • It seems that the House of the Dead page is all about some drama and has no references to any of the traditions which may include having a Mortuary or Communal Crypt which is particularly common in places where terrain makes digging graves impractical and land and materials are scarce. Update: Just added an entry and link to Mortuary house from the House of the dead page. Looks good to me; time will tell. M0llusk 19:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Left--no point in being a part of a project when my stuff will probably just get deleted unless it fits a lowest common denomentator of public and academic acceptance reaching through the historical record. -- M0llusk 01:23, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
  • Need to add something to Gentrification about density being unrelated. Like many other social phenomena Gentrification occurs in all contexts whether Urban, Suburban, or Rural. Even with increasing density over time there is a relatively stable percentage of the population that chooses to live at each density level, so implying otherwise is not only incorrect but at least verging on discrimination.
  • Added Erection index page. Yay! --M0llusk 23:17, 2 August 2006 (UTC) ... And then I had to add references to keep it from being deleted. Saved a copy on the side in case this means war. BOO! --M0llusk 23:50, 2 August 2006 (UTC)
More references wanted for the Erection index page. An exercise for readers? I left some arguably amusing and/or bitchy defense of the term on the page. Seems like wikipedia is for documenting this kind of plebian analysis, so I should expect for the page to be deleted soon? Life is mystery. -- M0llusk 00:36, 28 August 2006 (UTC)
Predictably, this useful and relevant information was deleted. As far as I can tell the objections in the deletion record are nonsense, but might be avoided with better references and some more explanation of usage. It is deeply disturbing to me that Wikipedia is full of references to cultural esoterica, yet relevant terms that come up in my daily life are frequently sensoredd because of a lack of understanding, a lack of willingness to understand, unreasonable snobbery about sources, and a general feeling that anything that feels wrong should go. When pages like this that have real meaning are deleted the result is a loss for the community as a whole. Colloquial analysis should be represented here, but given the haphazard state of this community most edits are popularity contests enjoined by the poorly read and unwordly. Very sad! -- M0llusk 05:28, 16 September 2006 (UTC)Wikipedia is supposed to be open. The deleters are removing anything that is not fully clean and entirely accepted by all establ
  • yikes, business logic is marked for deletion! But it was saved. Alas, it is not clear for how long as there are many vociferous criticics of the whole thing. -- M0llusk 16:22, 18 August 2006 (UTC)


After finding useful information here, I began to make small contributions. After making small contributions I began to notice missing pages, then after some time I began to notice that content that seemed to me to be correct, appropriate, and relevant was being deleted. After watching the deletion process in detail I found much being deleted using methodology that appears to be both fundamentally flawed and specifically not correct employment of the deletion policy. Now most of my work here is attempting to call attention to issues related to aggressive deletion.

Deletion policy is a complex balance because large amounts of junk is contributed which not only should be deleted, but must be deleted in order for Wikipedia to function. That said, Wikipedia requires the attention of contributors to be useful. Aggressive deletion risks loss not only of useful content, but useful editors as well.

What is wrong with deletion? In short, it is far too easy. Pages representing a great deal of work and ongoing improvement may be deleted simply because one or a small number of readers fail to understand the material or do not accept sources. While pages may be built up over a long time with negotiation, any kind of objection may lead at any time to deletion. The standard deletion time frame of five days is well understood by deleters and regularly used to void the contributions of weekend Wikipedians. This makes effective contribution to Wikipedia without daily intention challenging. Allowing simple objections from closed minds to power deletion means that any concept that is not simple or long understood and any conflict over correct sources means that Wikipedia will tend to be limited and heavily censored relative to its potential.

Examples are numerous. One of the better examples is the Business logic page. This documents a concept which came into general use around 1994, which is still important to commercial software development, and which when mastered can lead to high paying software jobs. People who are unfamiliar with this concept have been trying to delete the page. On the surface it may seem that the page not being deleted represents a victory for the deletion process, but it is not clear that is so. By frequently attempting to delete or question the need for this page the rate of contribution has been slowed. Numerous participants in the debate have noted a lack of books and papers discussing this subject, but this is related to its nature as a commercial tool rather than an academic exercise. Ironically, many entirely academic software concepts which have proven irrelevant to software industry are well documented here and because they have long published book sources.

How to fix the deletion process? There are no simple answers or it would already have been fixed. Some thoughts I have are that when a page has many authors and has accumulated edits that the amount of effort to delete the page should go up as the amount of effort put into creating it is increased. When deleting pages, especially those with multiple contributions, the authors of those pages should be notified that deletion is in process, and if at all possible deletion should be suspended for a period of weeks to enable a response. This is an extreme suggestion since the current five day period gets much discussion, but in my opinion pages that have had much attention and those that are just dropped down and left are quite different. Some kind of referee for working out conflicts might be helpful, as the process seems not always to be followed and poor reasoning is endemic. For example, it is frequently asserted that pages to be deleted are neologism, but if many Wikipedians built up a page in obvious disagreement then it should at least be necessary to mention what the page to be deleted is purported to be a neologism of.

What to do for now? Unfortunately, while Wikipedia has great potential for relevance, issues with editing and especially aggressive deletion put all that at risk. Since any material is likely to be deleted at any time simply because someone did not understand or would prefer other sources, it makes the most sense to create documentation outside Wikipedia and then import it as passing decades make it uninteresting. Once material has been in circulation for a while and books are out it becomes relatively easy to add it to Wikipedia, if necessary repeatedly. Social conventions, memes, and commerce as practiced in daily life are extremely challenging to document on Wikipedia because there may be conflict, lack of understanding, or in some cases no agreed upon printed reference materials.

-- M0llusk 08:28, 5 October 2006 (UTC)