User:The Thadman/Complaints/Archive

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Return to my desk

[edit] Jesse B. Davis

Per wikipedias policy:

"If a short stub was deleted for lack of content, and you wish to create a useful article on the same subject, you can be bold and do so. It is not necessary to have the original stub "undeleted". If, however, the new stub is also deleted, you may list it here for a discussion. If you are proposing that a page be reconsidered for deletion, please place the template {{Delrev}} on that page to inform editors who may wish to join the discussion here."

The only was deleted very quickly, shortly after it was posted because it was a stub.whicky1978 talk 19:50, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

I whole-heartedly apologize for inconveniencing you, then. If you wish to re-post the stub, to be sure another editor won't come by and tag it for deletion again, be sure to leave a note about it on its talk page and/or put the {{inuse}} tag on the top of it. Some other editors may still tag it as non-no</math>table, as searching for Mr. Davis only reveals a relative handfull of Google hits. If you need any further assistance, don't hesitate to give me a buzz here on my talk page or drop a note at my desk. :-) אמר Steve Caruso(desk/poll) 22:56, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Don't confuse popularity with notability.whicky1978 talk 04:36, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

It is not an issue of popularity vs. notability. It is an issue of following Wikipedia Policy for newly created articles, specifically Wikipedia's Criteria for Speedy Deletion. There was no indication that you were going to expand the article, such as an {{inuse}} tag, so none of the editors here really had much to go by. This wasn't an action personally tailored against you or the subject, it was following rules, and I encourage you to continue to work on this article and turn it into something wonderful. Just be sure to let everyone else know that it is a work in progress, so other editors who aren't "in the loop" know to leave it alone and let you work on it. :-) אמר Steve Caruso(desk/poll) 13:14, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] John Zerzan article edits/deletions

If there is going to be a section on John Zerzan's ideas and theories (as opposed to a flat biographical article about Zerzan the human person), then that section can (and should) include the critical reception of those ideas.

An external link that references a fact (say, the distance from the Earth to the Moon) ought to meet certain reliability criteria - it ought to be from a high-quality site that can be trusted and so forth. The reader who follows a footnote to the site is asked to believe that that site is a reliable source of information about something external to the site's text.

For an example of criticism, however, this requirement doesn't seem necessary. The requirement should be simply that the site referenced actually itself contains an example of criticism from someone who has made a legitimate attempt to wrestle with Zerzan's ideas: that is to say that an example of such criticism should stand or fall on its own merits as an example, without reference to what sort of site it was found on.

As an analogy, if I say "aliens from outer space blew up the World Trade Center" and follow that with a reference to some Geocities page that makes this claim, this is improper. But if I say "websites exist that make the claim that aliens from outer space blew up the World Trade Center" then such a link is appropriate.

So if the article says "some critics of Zerzan's work say such-and-such; for example, 'such and such'" it would be improper to link to a geocities or blog that merely repeats or backs up the assertion that some critics of Zerzan say such things. However to link to a piece of criticism itself that says those things as an example by which the assertion can be confirmed, even if that criticism is on some relatively untrusted site, seems to me wholly unobjectionable.

Examples of critical analysis of Zerzan's work are difficult to find in the mainstream press, in books, and in academia because Zerzan is a fairly fringe thinker, who tends to be taken seriously mostly by people who, if they publish at all, publish for the underground press, radical journals, or on blogs/websites. To omit references to this body of criticism from this page (solely because when these criticisms appear on websites, they are sites of less reputable quality) will degrade the value of this article. --Moorlock 23:53, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

(I have responded to this inquiry over on Talk:John Zerzan. I copy of the next of my response is included below for convenience :-) )
I understand that you feel that the requirement "doesn't seem necessary" however it -is- necessary under Wikipedia guidelines. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is "verifiability, not truth." With the nature of Blogs as a means of self-publication, anyone regardless of their proficiency with the subject matter or credencials may say whatever they wish. The blog site has no method to actually verify if they address Zerzan accurately (and even their authors publish under pseudonyms so we cannot verify their credencials or work outside the page). Although I would personally like to see some criticism in the article (as I'm not a fan of Zerzan myself by any means :-) ), criticism must be in line with policy, which is what Foamy Latte conveyed to me as what he saw inappropriate and wanted help expressing. אמר Steve Caruso (desk/poll) 02:57, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
My point is that if the statement being sourced is "some critics of Zerzan say such-and-such" and the page being referenced as a source for this claim is one on which a critic is saying such-and-such, that is the very definition of verifiability. The credentials of the site, the pseudonomous nature of the page's author, and so forth is not at issue because evidence of the authors' "proficiency with the subject matter" is self-contained in the page itself and does not need back-up from some second-hand estimation of authenticity such as a site's mainstreamness. --Moorlock 03:18, 20 July 2006 (UTC)
Wikipedia's Verifiability Policy is what defines "verifiability" on Wikipedia, and a blog is not really a verifiable source to use in an article. For example, as outlined:
"Anyone can create a website or pay to have a book published, and then claim to be an expert in a certain field. For that reason, self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources. Exceptions may be when a well-known, professional researcher in a relevant field, or a well-known professional journalist, has produced self-published material. In some cases, these may be acceptable as sources, so long as their work has been previously published by credible, third-party publications. However, exercise caution: if the information on the professional researcher's blog is really worth reporting, someone else will have done so." -- WP:V#Self-published sources (online and paper)
The Dark Ages Blog doesn't seem to meet these criteria; however, I encourage you to carefully look over WP:V and WP:RS and find material that is appropriate to post as criticism. Peace! אמר Steve Caruso (desk/poll) 13:50, 20 July 2006 (UTC)