Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Reviewing

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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellaneous page below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result of the debate was delete, with all due respect to the creator of this page — however well-intentioned, consensus is pretty clear. I find Sarah's argument to be particularily persuasive. Daniel (talk) 11:38, 16 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Reviewing

This and the two pages mentioned below conflict with WP:CONSENSUS and violate WP:OWN, and is one person's attempt to establish a new bureaucratic hierarchy parallel to adminship. On Wikipedia:Reviewing a user has set himself up as director, with approval authority over membership in the system and over changes to the system itself. The membership is restricted based on approval (all projects on Wikipedia are open to anybody, and don't require approval, unless set up that way by the community). And the director's authority over the department's procedures overrides the community's method of reaching such decisions through consensus. The Transhumanist (talk) 21:38, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

The "review system" includes Wikipedia:Reviews and Wikipedia:Reviewers, and these are included in this MfD. The Transhumanist (talk) 21:42, 8 February 2008 (UTC)
Template:Green-tick article is also now part of this list as it is an intricate part of the pages above. nat.utoronto 03:44, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

Weak keep. I acknowledge the points above. However, the pages might be salvagable if they were to be adjusted in such a way as to help editors who actually are to some degree or another "expert" in certain fields can be contacted for input on certain articles. Right now, we just have a template which alerts editors to certain pages, it might be useful if there were a centralized page where editors could go to try to find someone who might be able to provide a bit more "expert" attention to certain articles. Notices on WikiProject talk pages and the like can be overlooked rather easily, unfortunately. John Carter (talk) 21:57, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Comment - Wikipedia:Reviewing states: "The current director of the reviewing system is Thomas H. Larsen, who is responsible for approving major reviewing system decisions and generally ensuring that the reviewing system successfully accomplishes its purpose. If you have a major comment, question, or concern regarding the reviewing system, you may contact Thomas via any of the methods listed on his userpage. Please do not contact him with minor statements or issues regarding the reviewing system, since he is very bus'y even 'without 'such communications." Approval powers were never granted to him by the community, and having authority over the contents of a page contradicts Wikipedia:Consensus and violates Wikipedia's policy on page ownership. The Transhumanist (talk) 22:01, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

Weak delete for the reasons outlined in the Transhumanist's opening sentence. However, whether this particular nomination succeeds or not, this topic is worthy of serious discussion. Having been away for some time, I don't know whether this page or the idea behind it have received any external attention at the Pump. I agree that it cannot survive in its current form, but there is clearly a need for some form of expert support. Some of the lower-traffic projects cannot be relied upon to provide assistance. Any such provision need not conflict with WP:OWN. Adrian M. H. 22:45, 8 February 2008 (UTC)

  • Comment. First, I think Thomas H. Larsen should be informed about this discussion and I have done so. Given that he says he is on WP only one or two hours a week at present, I hope this discussion will be left open long enough for him to comment. He may take the criticism into account and develop this into something useful. Certainly it can not continue as it stands. However I do not think it should be deleted. If it can not be saved, it should be tagged as a process that has been rejected by the community and is left for historical reasons. --Bduke (talk) 01:12, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete The adjustment John suggests amounts to a total rewrite, and a different proposal entirely. the paragraph about THL being the "manager" is hopelessly out of accord with basic policy. This page cannot possibly be left in WP space as it stands.DGG (talk) 02:18, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete as a contradiction to WP:CONSENSUS, and violation of WP:NOT and WP:OWN. and it looks like Thomas H. Larsen, no offense, is trying to become, to a certain degree, the next Larry Sanger. I agree that it's well intended, but way too powergrabby (even if that is not the intention). Plus, there was no community discussion or consensus. Mark as "a rejected proposal".
  • Delete, this proposal spits in the face of WP:CONSENSUS; it's also highly bureaucratic and a bit narcissistic. If this is kept, mark it as rejected. --Coredesat 06:40, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete There's GA, FA and peer review, so why do we need this seemingly ego-stroking "green tick" malarky? One Night In Hackney303 08:16, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per the ownership issues and the lack of demonstration that we need another review process. — Gavia immer (talk) 15:47, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete this and associated pages as unneeded and bureaucratic. Sandstein (talk) 17:45, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment - It should be noted that Mr. Larsen I think contacted me some time ago regarding this idea, and as I remember offered me a position as one of the review directors. As such, I tend to think that he included his own name as manager more as a "contact man" than as a formal director. I did get the impression that he was not intending to make this his own fiefdom, but rather that he wanted to be able to provide a go-to man for the idea. On that basis, I tend to think the statment about him being the director wasn't intended to be taken as an assertion of autority, as has been indicated above. And, as per my earlier comments, I think we would all be well served if we did have some individuals with at least a degree of knowledge of a subject listed somewhere as, well, not "experts" per se, but at least people with either some direct knowledge of a subject and/or easy access to information which might be needed or useful for certain articles. John Carter (talk) 18:05, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Theres already 3 other reviwing sytems and this isnt needed. BonesBrigade 14:41, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete per reasons cited above. Furthermore, User_talk:Thomas H. Larsen says he is "not very active" on Wikipedia and edits only 1-2 hours a week. --Michael WhiteT·C 20:37, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Unnecessary fork of a existing WP system. I can understand the rationale he gives, and perhaps there may be a systemic bias within peer review that focuses more on MoS structure than verified claims. But you don't fix a flat tire by rebuilding the whole car. -- RoninBK T C 23:00, 10 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Request Hold I would like to have this deletion discussion put on hold. While suspended, discussion can then occur on whether or not we want this and if we do, how to set it up. Geoff Plourde (talk) 03:39, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Requested hold. I invite discussion on the reviewing project. I have put the reviewing project's operation on hold [1] until the community has discussed this subject. — Thomas H. Larsen 08:15, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • I have removed my position as "director" per my edits to the reviewing project's main page. Please note that I had no intention to violate any community principles or official policies on Wikipedia; my understanding (which, by the way, is fairly small) to do with WikiProjects is that projects may have directors. I agree that I acted in haste, and I apologise. Please understand that I have had very little interaction with Wikipedia for a long time, and I am trying to help the project in a long-term way. I invite further discussion on the project, which I still endorse; its systems, however, are open to community consensus. I hope that it is possible for community members to improve, build, and help maintain this project, even if in a modified form. Best and apologetic regards, — Thomas H. Larsen 08:23, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
    • I'd just like to say thank you for the effort, it's a nice idea that could use some community input before you go off and reinvent the wheel. You might want to post this idea on one of the subpages of Wikipedia:Village Pump to get some consensus first. -- RoninBK T C 19:47, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - but a project that does pure "fact checking" seems useful. Other reviewing systems concentrate on MOS, refs, external links, wiki mark-up, readability, etc. Dan Beale-Cocks 11:51, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - good idea, but better alternatives. Kaldari (talk) 00:05, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete - ill-conceived; creator clearly had not done his homework, which bodes ill for the future of this wikiproject—greenrd (talk) 11:22, 12 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. A discussion on a unified reviewing system may be found at Wikipedia:Grand Unified Reviewing Discussion. — Thomas H. Larsen 08:50, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete. I looked at these pages recently and meant to go back and MFD them myself but totally forgot about it, so thanks Transhumanist. I really, really don't like this project at all and I think it adds a layer of bureaucracy to something that should not be at all bureaucratic and another attempt to give editors "classes" or "ranks" and it all sits in the hands of one self-assigned person the community hasn't approved. I also don't like the self-assigned powers to "revoke membership", to essentially exclude others for any reason or no reason if the captain so desires. "No editor is permitted to carry out official reviews on articles unless their username appears in the "Reviewers" section below and it was intentionally added by a reviewing leader." Ugh, no, no, no, no. Absolutely not. And as an aside, the only "leader", who is the only person "allowed" to approve other editors to review articles, barely edits Wikipedia, making only 100 edits since November last year, meaning that anyone who wants to participate can't until he decides to drop back in. I really don't like this and would like to see the whole thing chucked. It's just another layer of bureaucracy and another layer of "classes" of editors. We've seen other similar projects that were set up in similar ways, handing all power to their creator, formalising everyday Wikipedia activities and adding bureaucratic layers and segregation and we've routinely deleted them. I see no reason to keep this. Let's just be rid of it. Sarah 09:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment There is Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check. Awadewit | talk 15:02, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
  • Delete Processes should be community driven and informal. This seems to double up heavily on the "peer review" mechanisms we have. Also people appointing themselves directors of things is really a bit silly, especially when they don't contribute themselves. Orderinchaos 04:23, 15 February 2008 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the page's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.