# Fuck Wikipedia and its deletion fiends **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [March 28, 2008, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071 "2008-03-28T17:55:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/41 "2008-03-29T17:27:03Z")
Look how far removed we are from Wikipedia and see how much tension is arising. I used to be more involved in Wikipedia than I am now, but I’ve made a decision to reduce my involvement because really, the principal consequence of “getting involved” in Wikipedia is aggravation. It’s simply not worth it to wade into battles over content. Here you have a cabal of Wikipedia editors dedicated to deleting whatever category of article is currently bugging them. How many times can one go up against this? Here you have a cabal of Wikipedia editors who are _really into_ Tolkien and are going to vigorously defend a minute word-for-word documentation of everything Tolkien ever wrote about. So all that Tolkien stuff is going to stay in. And, face it, when a person goes through the time and effort to write an article or to research sources or whatever, he or she is going to have some emotional attachment to it. That’s natural. Personally, I like it when someone takes an article and improves it and expands it. But if there’s a danger of the hatchet coming down in the form of aggressive deletion monkeys, then why should I put my time and mental equanimity on the line? I’m a professional writer and editor. I get paid to do this stuff. I’m less willing to write and edit articles on a voluntary basis when those contributions aren’t welcome. So, I don’t see it as worth my while to try to jump through the hoops to save this one article that I occasionally find useful to look at. Instead, I’m going to download it to my computer so when I want to look it up, I’ll have it. I appreciate the effort you’ve taken, SisterCoyote, in recovering that information, and now that I have it, I’m going to keep it. But I’m not going to put forth any significant effort in what I think I’m justified in believing will be an ultimately futile attempt to save the page from further “attacks” as the Wikipedia admin put it. ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/42 "2008-03-29T18:18:20Z")
[QUOTE=clairobscur] It happens that I just noticed a deletion half an hour ago. Very very occasionnaly, I’ve made very minor modifications to Wikipedia articles (like correcting a faulty translation or similar stuff). For some reason, I looked up the articles I had corrected. One of them was an article about a small french village whose only claim to fame is the attribution of an Ignobel prize to a scout organization whose members had damaged prehistoric cave paintings there. All references to the scouts damaging the paintings had been removed (even though the Ignobel prize was the only reason why the article had been created), with the mention “removed unsourced scout reference”. I looked up, and noticed that the corrector was apparently mostly (or only) writing articles about the scouts. I wasn’t particularily pissed off but I couldnt help thinking that it was deleted only because it painted negatively a scout organization. [/QUOTE] And, yet, if we don’t remember our past FUBARs, we’re doomed to repeat them. Some months ago, the Scouts stumbled across some previously unknown rock paintings in Utah, IIRC, they _very_ carefully erased all evidence of their presence (so as not to encourage passersby from looking), wrote down the GPS coordinates of where the paintings, and then gave the information to archeologists. I can’t help but think that the mistakes at Lascaux influenced their actions. ---
**Author:** ![onions\_without\_tears](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c37758/32.png) [@onions\_without\_tears](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/onions_without_tears)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2008, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/43 "2008-03-29T20:23:34Z")
You might recover the old page with Google by clicking on “cached” links. ---
**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/44 "2008-04-07T17:41:37Z")
Mind if I bump this still somewhat fresh thread? I’m finding myself caught up in some deletion wars as of late. Since 1994, I’ve been running a Web site that is considered authoritative in its field; it’s not some insignificant fly-by-night Geocities page or commercial site. ALL of the links to my site from related articles were deleted by some administrator, as spam. I’ll admit I added a couple, but like I said, it’s not as if I’m running some obscure or for-profit site; my site comes up second or third in a Google search for the profession’s name.m Meanwhile, links to a rival commercial site, many of which were added by the owner of that site, remain intact. Why aren’t they deleted? The response from the administrator was akin to “we’re talking about you, not them.” They also accused me of posting only links to my site, when it wasn’t the case. All of this has soured me on the Wikipedia experience. No credit for editing pages over the past few years, just accusations of being a spammer. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 5:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/45 "2008-04-07T17:48:38Z")
There are processes in place, including arbitration, where if you’re really cheesed about this you can bring it to the attention of the community. I haven’t been involved in this sort of dispute but if you post {{helpme}} to your talk page and a request for advice on how to try to resolve the dispute, someone more knowledgable about the procedure can point you in the right direction. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 5:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/46 "2008-04-07T17:59:30Z")
Missed the edit window, but I think that the [Administrators’ noticeboard/incidents](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:ANI) is the place to start. ---
**Author:** ![Darth\_Sensitive](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/58956e/32.png) [@Darth\_Sensitive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darth_Sensitive)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2008, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/47 "2008-04-07T18:03:50Z")
[QUOTE=Tuckerfan] And, yet, if we don’t remember our past FUBARs, we’re doomed to repeat them. Some months ago, the Scouts stumbled across some previously unknown rock paintings in Utah, IIRC, they _very_ carefully \*\*erased all evidence of their presence \*\*(so as not to encourage passersby from looking), wrote down the GPS coordinates of where the paintings, and then gave the information to archeologists. I can’t help but think that the mistakes at Lascaux influenced their actions. [/QUOTE] (Emphasis mine) Gee! I didn’t realize that “leave no trace” included those previously left by ancient civilizations! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/48 "2008-04-08T18:22:08Z")
> [@](#): > > There are processes in place, including arbitration, where if you’re really cheesed about this you can bring it to the attention of the community. I haven’t been involved in this sort of dispute but if you post {{helpme}} to your talk page and a request for advice on how to try to resolve the dispute, someone more knowledgable about the procedure can point you in the right direction. But a process like this is long and complicated. The problem is that deleters find it easy to just keep hitting over and over again. I once likened it to a race between people trying to build houses and people trying to destroy houses. It takes months of skilled labor by dozens of people to build a single house. But one idiot with a book of matches can burn down twenty houses in a single hour. ---
**Author:** ![Otto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbe5ce/32.png) [@Otto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otto)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/49 "2008-04-08T18:44:25Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] But a process like this is long and complicated. The problem is that deleters find it easy to just keep hitting over and over again. I once likened it to a race between people trying to build houses and people trying to destroy houses. It takes months of skilled labor by dozens of people to build a single house. But one idiot with a book of matches can burn down twenty houses in a single hour. [/QUOTE] I was speaking of the specific case under discussion, which was that a single admin went in and (probably bot-assisted) deleted all of elmwood’s links as spam. Since it’s a conflict between a single editor and a single admin, it can probably be resolved fairly quickly and the admin, if found to be in error, can restore the links. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2008, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/50 "2008-04-08T19:40:15Z")
Wikipedia is still a valuable resource [when it’s done right.](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/50902) ---
**Author:** ![elvenflow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/c5a1d2/32.png) [@elvenflow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elvenflow)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 9:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/51 "2015-10-30T09:32:40Z")
The people who manage different parts of Wikipedia refuse to communicate with mere humans. I first tried to contact the person or person who manages the author I would like to edit over a decade ago. Finally, after numerous enquiries, just gave up and edited wildly, figuring if they don’t care enough to ever respond to enquiries the best thing to do is give it my best shot. Then they respond. They are just there to police, never to assist. ---
**Author:** ![kidchameleon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/898d66/32.png) [@kidchameleon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kidchameleon)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/52 "2015-10-30T11:45:32Z")
Do they communicate with zombies? ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/53 "2015-10-30T12:00:42Z")
Thanks to rampant deletion it’s only now, here on _this_ site, seven years after the fact, that I learn that Sam is a homofag? ---
**Author:** ![Construct](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/50afbb/32.png) [@Construct](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Construct)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/54 "2015-10-30T18:29:59Z")
> [@elvenflow](#): > > - just gave up and edited wildly I’m sure everyone is very appreciative. As for the thread, it’s incredibly satisfying to delete a worthless article on some liberal airhead and watch a bunch of losers’ hard work go straight into the trash. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/55 "2015-10-30T19:04:51Z")
Not as satisfying as it’s gonna be seeing BANNED under your name. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/56 "2015-10-30T19:09:21Z")
> [@Construct](#): > > …it’s incredibly satisfying to delete a worthless article on some liberal airhead and watch a bunch of losers’ hard work go straight into the trash. It doesn’t work like that. ---
**Author:** ![Claverhouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/13edae/32.png) [@Claverhouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Claverhouse)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/57 "2015-10-30T19:17:47Z")
Charming. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/58 "2015-10-30T20:03:35Z")
> [@gaffa](#): > > Some Wikipedia policies are just dumb. I’ve contributed a considerable amount to an article on a singer with a four octave range. This is the sort of thing that is tossed around quite freely, to the point that people have claimed that Mariah Carey has a “seven octave range”. So I actually verified the singers highest and lowest recorded notes by verifying the frequency of each note. Now I’m arguing the inclusion of this information with the sort of Wiki-Lawyer type who delights in pointing out that this is verboten “original research”. Apparently the cause of an encyclopedia is better suited by external, **unverified** sources rather than proof of facts. Are you an expert published in the field with multiple references published by other experts? Or are you just some buy who said, “Look what I can claim.”? ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/59 "2015-10-30T20:11:25Z")
> [@elvenflow](#): > > The people who manage different parts of Wikipedia refuse to communicate with mere humans. I first tried to contact the person or person who manages the author I would like to edit over a decade ago. Finally, after numerous enquiries, just gave up and edited wildly, figuring if they don’t care enough to ever respond to enquiries the best thing to do is give it my best shot. Then they respond. They are just there to police, never to assist. There’s no such thing as a person or person who manages an article on Wikipedia. ---
**Author:** ![Rick\_Kitchen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rick_kitchen/32/522_2.png) [@Rick\_Kitchen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rick_Kitchen)\ **Post date:** [October 30, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071/60 "2015-10-30T20:12:25Z")
> [@Rick\_Kitchen](#): > > Are you an expert published in the field with multiple references published by other experts? Or are you just some buy who said, “Look what I can claim.”? Er, guy, not buy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/fuck-wikipedia-and-its-deletion-fiends/443071.md?page=2)