On deletion, blocking newbies, aggressive user-talk templates, and slowing growth
Wikipedia growth has slowed dramatically - both in the # of new users signing up and in the # of new articles being created. Some say that we're approaching having "an article about everything"... this sounds to me like physicists at the end of the 19th century saying we'd just about resolved all of physics. The world is full of tens of millions of creative works, billions of people, and trillions of places, things, and concepts. We're not there yet.
However, we've developed a whole network of policies and guidelines to help the project grow smoothly, without unusual growth in certain subgenres. I believe Wikipedia needs to continue its steady pace of growth, and to expand to cover the hundreds of enormous areas currently untouched; this page is for gathering the arguments to the contrary, and to see why as a community we are backing away from some of our founding tendencies.
Many editors, particularly long-time editors who think about ways to improve the encyclopedia through policy, work diligently to slow the growth of Wikipedia. There are many reasons for this, including:
Notability. Wikipedia should be about useful educational topics, not 'everything'.
Corrolary: verifiability. The higher the standards for verifiability (# of significant mentions in peer-reviewed or edited publications) the more cross-references there are to avoid bad information. The more likely a generally-rounded reader is to understand whether an article is real or serious or not, the more resistant the encyclopedia is to false additions.
Clutter. Wikipedia is higher quality when it does not contain articles about (Pokemon characters, high schools, TV show episodes, fictional locations, minor geographical features), which clutter up the article namespace.
Quality. It's hard to write a quality article about (pick category you consider unimportant); they should be written somewhere else.
Reputation. (Person / topic / place / thing) doesn't deserve the recognition it would get from having an entry in Wikipedia. It's an elite 6,827,647 member club after all.
Policy violation. This is a common catch-all. Existing policy doesn't support a large class of new contributions, therefore anyone trying to contribute in those ways should be blocked and banned. Nevermind that the policies may have been made when there were no good edits of that type coming in, and that new communities may be joining... these new contributors, should they not know how to juggle current policies and discussion channels, may be shut down without a welcome. This can keep them from joining even when they are quite devoted to the cause... A typical case involves being treated rudely once, responding in kind, and being [inappropriately] flagged as bad contributors.
Starting with common reasons that worry me. There are lots of good reasons as well.
No clear way to push inoffensive material somewhere out of the main article namespace, where it can be preserved as freely-licensed information that may be useful in the future
Written suspiciously; killed with fire
Contributed by an IP or redlink, didn't seem interesting
Thought it was contributed by someone with an organizational connection (say a group that makes an account with their group name and creates an article about themselves)
Was a copy of text from a private website hosted elsewhere and visible on google. Editor didn't specify they owned that website in their edit summary; assumed the worst.
Article had been created before by someone else. A second time is surely speediable.
Had a prod template; it was going to be deleted later anyway.
Someone put a speedy template on it; no need to confirm it was appropriate.
Reasons given for blocking newbies aggressivelyedit
There are vandals and offensive users/usernames, but there are rarely reasons to block a well-meaning account aggressively. I think almost all of the following should be prefaced by discussion and a welcome. We should make good return editors out of anyone who is interested enough to make an account.
Created an account yesterday, and has only edited one article. Clearly a single purpose account.
Editing article about their own family/organization/project, as they admit directly on their userpage. Warn and block.
Created an account 'the wrong way'. (including the name of their org in the account, for instance)
Didn't obey 3rr, making unconstructive/biased edits.
x+1 is an online predictive marketing firm based in New York City. Its hosted software platform targets online advertising and marketing content to audience segments through real-time data analysis (IP address, browsing activity, third-party sources) for use in outbound media campaigns (banner ads, search marketing) and for personalizing a visitor’s website and landing page experience.
x+1 was co-founded in 1999 by Ted Shergalis, formerly an investment banker with Morgan Stanley, and x+1’s current chief strategy officer, along with Joe Zawadzki, now CEO of Media Math, and Isaac Lidsky. On April 26, 2006, x+1 changed its name and rebranded from Poindexter Systems Inc. On Dec. 25, 2007, [x+1] was awarded a patent for the Predictive Optimization Engine (POE), its core technology that was six years in development.
In May 2008, x+1 secured $16 million in venture funding led by Advanced Technology Ventures, with participation from Hudson Venture Partners and Blue Chip Venture Company. In January 2008, the company hired online marketing veteran John Nardone, former head of Marketing Management Analytics, as its Chairman and CEO.
Swisha(born Jonathan Whitfield on May 10th 1982) is an American Hip-Hop artist. After a few local appearances on mixtapes he dropped his own mixtape titled "The Voice Of The Crooked Vol. 1" which is regarded as one of the best mixtapes to come from Mississippi from the fans in the state of Mississippi. '''
May 2009: Swish Templates: {{db-person}} , {{hangon}}
Jonathan Louville Whitfield (born May 10, 1982), better known as his stage name, Swisha, is an American hip hop artist and producer. He was born in Jackson, Mississippi to Sherrill and Joe Whitfield. Swisha grew up in Clinton, Mississippi and attended the same school system as Lance Bass of N'Sync. Swisha began writing his first songs just at the age of 14. He became known figure locally, rapping in numerous cyphers and battles in and around Jackson and Clinton, Mississippi. After high school, Swisha went to the University of Southern Mississippi where he would further his aspirations for music along with friends Michael Welch and Corey Norwood of Unique Image(signed to Plies record label Big Gates Records.) It was in college where Swisha learned to produce music, winning free tuition from a freethrow shooting competition after being hand selected by friend Michael Boley of the New York Giants. After winning the free tuition, Swisha purchased his first music equipment and began producing for himself and for other local artists around Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Swisha saw no immediate success and began working on his first mixtape entitled, "The Voice Of The Crooked Vol. 1" which went on to push over 3000 units in over 5 states including Florida, Texas, and California.
After graduating from the University of Southern Mississippi and seeing no success from releasing his mixtape, Swisha moved to Los Angeles where he befriended Nadirah X. Since befriending Nadirah X, the two have worked together on numerous occasions.[1] Swisha also found himself in the company of Glen Ballard, David A. Stewart, and also doing session work for Rolling Stones lead-singer Mick Jagger. Swisha is currently in the studio working with Anna Vissi for her upcoming international album as well as working with Nadirah X for her upcoming album while also working on his own material.
