I'll never understand the amount of vitriol Wikipedia volunteers must receive. Why is the deletion (or even deletion proposal) regarded as such a heinous act that people feel the need to attack and bully others?
I find this kind of behaviour and rethoric wholly unacceptable.
> Why is the deletion (or even deletion proposal) regarded as such a heinous act that people feel the need to attack and bully others?
FWIW I don't see this as an attack (with, perhaps, the exception of a couple of comments in the linked thread) and posted the link to the reddit thread as I see it more as an interesting observation around the myriad issues facing "legacy" languages and communities. To wit:
* Google appears to be canon for finding secondary sources, according to the various arguments in the deletion proposals, yet we're all aware of how abysmal Google's search has been for a while now.
* What's the future of this policy given the fractured nature of the web these days, walled gardens, and now LLMs?
* An article's history appears to be irrelevant in the deletion discussion: the CPAN page (now kept) had 24 years of history on Wikipedia, with dozens of sources, yet was nominated for deletion.
* Link rot is pervasive, we all knew this, but just how much of Wikipedia is being held up by the waybackmachine?
* Doesn't this become a negative feedback cycle? Few sources exist, therefore we remove sources, therefore fewer sources exist.
Consider the other perspective: how should Perl programmers feel when Google's index becomes the main criterion for what is considered important or not? This creates a circular dependency that can erase genuine technical contributions from the historical record.
The reasons for deletion don't seem that outlandish to me. I'd rather not see them deleted, but I also don't think this outcome is that surprising, nor would I describe it as a "memory wipe."
The CPAN page on Wikipedia has existed for 24 years, has dozens of references, yet an editor nominated it for deletion - I can't help but feel that as hostile. Fortunately this one has been voted "keep", but still...
I'll never understand the amount of vitriol Wikipedia volunteers must receive. Why is the deletion (or even deletion proposal) regarded as such a heinous act that people feel the need to attack and bully others?
I find this kind of behaviour and rethoric wholly unacceptable.
> Why is the deletion (or even deletion proposal) regarded as such a heinous act that people feel the need to attack and bully others?
FWIW I don't see this as an attack (with, perhaps, the exception of a couple of comments in the linked thread) and posted the link to the reddit thread as I see it more as an interesting observation around the myriad issues facing "legacy" languages and communities. To wit:
* Google appears to be canon for finding secondary sources, according to the various arguments in the deletion proposals, yet we're all aware of how abysmal Google's search has been for a while now.
* What's the future of this policy given the fractured nature of the web these days, walled gardens, and now LLMs?
* An article's history appears to be irrelevant in the deletion discussion: the CPAN page (now kept) had 24 years of history on Wikipedia, with dozens of sources, yet was nominated for deletion.
* Link rot is pervasive, we all knew this, but just how much of Wikipedia is being held up by the waybackmachine?
* Doesn't this become a negative feedback cycle? Few sources exist, therefore we remove sources, therefore fewer sources exist.
Consider the other perspective: how should Perl programmers feel when Google's index becomes the main criterion for what is considered important or not? This creates a circular dependency that can erase genuine technical contributions from the historical record.
Wikipedia has a page for an Egyptian King that ruled for perhaps only 10 years 5000 years ago. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anedjib
Why is that still relevant?
Or to put it another way when does the contemporary move into interesting history?
When did the Perl Monks run a kingdom?
Apples and oranges.
The deletion proposals do not mention "interesting" anywhere.
Correct, the cited factor is lack of significant coverage.
The new rule of notability: if it’s no longer in Google’s index, it basically doesn't meet Wikipedia's notability criteria
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Deletion...
"From a Google search, I wasn’t able to find" appears multiple times on that page alone.
The relevant part is before that:
> This article is exclusively sourced on primary sources.
The Google search is the nominator looking for an alternative source that could make it notable, something earlier editors failed to establish.
The reasons for deletion don't seem that outlandish to me. I'd rather not see them deleted, but I also don't think this outcome is that surprising, nor would I describe it as a "memory wipe."
The CPAN page on Wikipedia has existed for 24 years, has dozens of references, yet an editor nominated it for deletion - I can't help but feel that as hostile. Fortunately this one has been voted "keep", but still...