Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the miscellany 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 keep. Sam Blanning's arguments are valid and held sway in the decision, but community consensus is clearly in favor of keeping this page for reasons not fully supported by Category:Notable Wikipedians. —Doug Bell ^talk 23:29, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Wikipedians with articles

This page was created to keep track of Wikipedians who have articles written about them; it is completely unreliable and unverifiable. I've also nominated this category for CFD for the same reasons. -- P.B. Pilhet 17:00, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Keep. I see no reason not to have this self-reference, if only as an attempt to keep track of those Wikipedians who attempt to edit their own articles. It's certainly unreliable, but it's in Wikipedia-space. (Note: I am listed in the category.) Does this violate any specific guideline (which applies to Wikipedia-space) or is it otherwise harmful to the encyclopedia. If not, deleting would be inappropriate. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 18:34, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Keep there is nothing wrong with having a list of "celebrity" Wikipedians. Koweja 19:58, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Keep. It is verifiable: you could simply call or mail the people in the article and ask them if they are the editors who claim to be them. And it is very useful: At some stage, Wikipedia will have a need to have its articles proofread by experts and here we have a list of some available ones. Also, as Arthur Rubin says, it is useful to check their edits on their own articles because of a possible conflict of interest.--Grace E. Dougle 20:21, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Keep. I agree with the above argument about verifiability. About reliability, if that's a criterion for deletion, we'd be deleting all sorts of stuff. It's simply a matter of enough people paying attention to make it a reliable list of Wikipedians with articles, just like any other article. —Kenyon (t·c) 21:06, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

When did we start applying WP:RS and WP:V to project space? KeepCirceus 22:44, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment We never did apply those policies to project space; I believe Esperanza was deleted not because it violated policy (correct me if I'm wrong, though), but because it simply wasn't working the way it should. I'm saying the same for this project page: while we could technically verify each of the listed celebrities, like the argument says above, it wouldn't be practical at all. As for using it to track people's edits that might violate WP:AB, this is easily handled by RC Patrollers, who look at the name of the user who made a suspicious edit to determine if it might be against WP:AB. All I'm saying is we don't need to be clogging up Wikipedia's servers with unnecessary pages, like this one. Wikipedia already has a bad reputation for being notoriously unreliable; let's not make it worse. -- P.B. Pilhet 23:39, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia already has a bad reputation for being notoriously unreliable; let's not make it worse.

Wikipedia articles have such a reputations. This page is at best harmless. We could make cases for not keeping Wikipedia:Deceased Wikipedians or Wikipedia:Editing of Wikipedia by the media (which was easily overturned at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:List of media personalities who have vandalised Wikipedia/2), but we aren't, so I don't see the need to delete this list any more than I see a point in trying to deleted WP:BJAODN.Circeus 01:24, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The usernames aren't always obvious. --Random832 02:18, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep per Circeus and others — useful to keep track of possible conflicts of interest. —Josiah Rowe (talk • contribs) 02:00, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong Keep we need to keep track of celebrity editors, not just for possible COI, but also to make our reputation better, if people can see that all these experts on various fields are actually editing wikipedia. Wooyi 03:09, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, and perhaps a rename to "People with articles that have edited Wikipedia" might be best (since "Wikipedians with articles" strongly implies COI to me, which is not always the case). Keep because it allows delineation of Category:Notable Wikipedians, for which I've voted to keep. Gracenotes^T § 04:32, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep & make inactive Make inactive by adding {{historical}} and keep the contents there and fully protect it, similar to WP:RFI.Tellyaddict 12:21, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Do not make it inactive we need to keep track on editors who have articles on their own, and the record actually provide incentive for famous expert to edit wikipedia. Wooyi 15:22, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keepand keep active. This both helps in keeping track of COI and more positively lets people see that experts edit WP. --Bduke 21:57, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
• Delete. List is identical in function to the category Notable Wikipedians, only the list requires maintenance. List loses. All arguments relating to enforcement of COI are specious, as a) most COI cases are extremely simple due to speedy deletion criteria and b) if it's not simple, at no point does the subject have to reveal that he is the subject. Only remaining argument is vanity on our part, i.e. to quote above, "we need to keep track of celebrity editors... to make our reputation better", "This... lets people see that experts edit WP". No, absolutely not. We do not maintain project pages to make ourselves look better, we let the encyclopaedia speak for itself. If we're maintaining a list to make our reputation better rather than improving articles than our priorities are @#&$ed up. How can we discourage vanity among subjects (or conflict of interest as it's now called) if we indulge in it ourselves? --Sam Blanning^(talk) 04:12, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment: we do not keep it just to maintain reputation, but also to encourage reputable experts in many fields to come here and leave a name in this list of record. Wooyi 04:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The requirement for having an article is notability, not expertise, and the two are very loosely related if at all. --Sam Blanning^(talk) 12:48, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Comment. I agree that the article doesn't serve the purpose the purpose of encouraging experts, for the reasons Sam Blanning notes, but the categories alone don't allow a quick reference as to which Wikipedian corresponds to which article. My user name is the same as my real name, and happens to be the full name of the article; others use a slightly different user name, or their article name is slightly different than the name they go by because of disambiguation. — Arthur Rubin | (talk) 13:41, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Sam Blanning: I was about to note that several people were keeping because it shows the experts on Wikipedia, but without naming names, a plethora of these notable people are not experts in any regard. I don't think that it's redundant to the category. More information (for example, about COI disputes, or blocking for vandalism) can be communicated. Gracenotes^T § 15:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• Keep of historical interest, although some articles are a bit questionable. CanadianCaesar Et tu, Brute? 04:55, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep to ensure that we can keep tabs on our conflict of interest policies. Andy Saunders 10:42, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep for above stated reasons. - Denny 19:19, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Strong keep as destroying articles in an encylopedia is equivalent to burning books, or, at least, to ripping off pages from a book. --AVM 23:28, 27 February 2007 (UTC)
• Keep, I don't see any reason why this list should be deleted. It is to keep track of work that is could be of conflict of interest. IMO, it should not be made inactive as there will be more and more famous people editing Wikipedia as more people will hear about the website. It is to show that we recognise famous peoples' contributions to Wikipedia. Terence Ong 恭喜发财 12:14, 28 February 2007 (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.