- User:Hedgehog0 (talk|edit|history|logs|links|watch) (restore)
A mystery to Me 217.171.129.74 (talk) 13:19, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Firstly, I would like to refer the reader to the following lengthy series of discussions that I [a new user] had with a more senior/estbalished user:
User talk:212.20.240.70#Hedgehog
I first created a wikipedia page about a new Java API called Hedgehog that I had spent over 2 years creating and thought the rest of the Java programming world might be interested in the page was created I was threatened with police and legal action against me.
The moderator who threatened with me with such action was subsequently banned from Wikipedia.
I then engaged in a lengthy discussion about the best way forward to proceed. As the referred to discussion clearly indicates it was suggested to me that I create my own "personal" page and once the Hedgehog API had attained sufficient "notabilty" that I would then promote this page to a main article page.
This I did - refer to the discussion.
Today I discovered that the Hedgehog0 page has been "speedily" deleted.
The deletion of this page is a complete mystery to me as it started out life as a copy of the Mathematic template.
For some unknown reason to new users, pages such as Mathematic are allowed to blatantly self-promote their products and yet other users are unable to do so, threatened with legal action and have their pages speedily deleted.
There really does appear to be double standards at work within Wikipedia.
I have also reached the point of totally losing my patience with wikipedia and really starting to question its viability as a "encyclopedia that anyone can edit".
Yes, anyone can create a new account and add pages but a select few will have final control.
This isn't a free to anyone source of information. It's more a akin with how the scriptures were rewritten by a select group of monks in the dark ages.
It's not truly "free" information but highly censored information by a select group of moderators and administrators.
The rules of wikipedia are an absolute mystery to new users such as myself, and their complexity draws new users into all sorts of conflicts, notability issues, threats of legal and police action, what's acceptable an what's not, and so on an so forth.
Yes, my past few months experience with wikipedia has left me really questioning its original objective. It may have started out notable but in my opinion is a mile away from a free knowledge experience.
Yours sincerely
Dr Graham Seed
- Can you please clarify exactly what you want done? Stifle (talk) 13:54, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I believe he wants the page User:Hedgehog0/Hedgehog Java API placed in mainspace. DGG (talk) 15:43, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- There was some previous discussion summarized at [1] after the user, then an anon, was attacked outrageously at the help desk by a sockpuppet of a now banned troll, Hamish Ross, pretending to be an administrator. This page was nominated for G11 , and placed in userspace by Wknight94 (who I just notified). However, i see no evidence at all that the program is notable; there seems to be zero references to it in google except for your own publicity. The program was apparently just released this March, so when there are reviews from established 3rd party reliable sources, then would be the time to add them and write the article. See our FAQ about businesses, other organisations, and articles like this. DGG (talk) 16:04, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- List at AfD as a WP:BITE issue.
This new user has had an article deleted under circumstances he sees as unreasonable. I think that he should not see an unchallengeable summary deletion; rather, he should see the Wikipedia community debate his article and reach a policy-based consensus. I think it likely that the article would be deleted following such a debate, but I think it's important that this user should see the said debate take place.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 17:40, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Endorse deletion – biting aside, I do not see how this article would possibly pass for inclusion. I am especially wary of the ownership and clear conflict of interest issues present. I am also of the opinion that the user account (not the user) should have been blocked for violating the username policy as a promotional username (that is, if I saw the created on Special:NewPages and saw who created it whilst seeing an exact match in the username, I would have reported to WP:UAA). MuZemike 20:06, 10 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Send to AFD per S Marshall. Stifle (talk) 08:15, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I'm perfectly happy for my user page, article and account to be deleted and I'll never use Wikipedia again if an administrator can provide suitable explanations to the following:
- If product endorsement pages are not allowed then why is the Mathematica page permitted? The Erik Satie page is not a product endorsement and I see no conflict of interest. However, if you believe that the Mathematica page is not all about product endorsement then you are wrong.
- It appears to me that a product endorsement page is acceptable provided that the product is notable. The fact remains that the page is still a product endorsement however notable it may be.
- Explain the difference from my user page which was deleted and the following accepted page Jscience.
- Explain the difference from my user page which was deleted and the following accepted page Javolution.
- You'll probably reply something along the lines "Previous accepted pages should not influence future policy...". This is unacceptable as the current wikipedia pages should lead by example. Also, if the above pages 2) and 3) would not be accepted today but are not deleted then you are simply drawing users such as myself into conflict of interest traps.
- I don't have anything against the above pages. They are simply randomly selected examples from thousands of such pages, which if a new user copied the format of and published themselves would be rejected.
Yours sincerely Dr Graham Seed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.20.240.70 (talk) 08:33, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Yes, Wikipedia is inconsistent. It's gloriously, radiantly, sumptuously and unselfconsciously inconsistent, and this is often surprising to new users.
Users accustomed to authoritarian, political, legal or business management-style decision-making processes tend to expect pretensions of consistency, so they expect precedent to have value. But Wikipedia is an ochlocracy that, very early in its history, specifically disavowed precedent as an influence on decision-making; see WP:WAX. Yes, it's amazing that such an "organisation" works. (Wikipedia's only successful in practice. In theory it's a total disaster.)—S Marshall Talk/Cont 18:17, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- PS: Though I've tried to answer your question, I do so without pretending to be an administrator, which I'm not.—S Marshall Talk/Cont 18:23, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Could the OP please provide links to legal and police threats? Who then was a gentleman? (talk) 19:36, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- As noted wikipedia is in some ways inconsistent. Wikipedia is also a volunteer effort and there is no onus on anyone (regular editor or administrator) to rush off and try and make the millions of articles perfect and consistent. People work within the areas that interest them and the things which come to their attention.
Notability is the implementation in guideline form of wikipedia is not an indescriminate set of information, it forms a basic inclusion criteria at the topic level, fail to meet that and the article will usually go, meet that bar and there is still no guarantee that the underlying article will be perfect. You perceive some articles as product endorsements, others will not perceive them as that. Wikipedia follows various core policies, netural point of view - essentially articles are in balance with the general view point sources provide not weighted to much to minority views etc. If something is generally written about positively by that virtue the article will be generally positive. Verifiability - verifiability not truth, we write what can be verified from other sources which doesn't always meet with absolute truth. Some of the articles you point to may require further attention, removing the advertising, rewording to a more encyclopedic tone or deletion (at the whim of whoever wants to do it), if you find an article which isn't up to scratch then feel free to try and fix it, if it's beyond repair and fails to meet our basic policies then you can nominate it for deletion. There is actually a level of consistency in all this, none of the articles are beyond scrutiny, editing or deletion. Articles which have gone unnoticed for months or years get deleted, others just through the deletion process gain interest from some editors and get made far better than their origins. --82.7.40.7 (talk) 22:07, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- when a product is notable, then we describe it. There are major differences between an encyclopedic description and one in an advertisement : we explain the features, we do not praise them. If articles for notable products are written in a fashion like an advertisement, they are deleted or rewritten. Sometimes promotional matter escapes detection, but when we do detect it, we remove it, for it's a major threat to our objectivity. But in order to justify a description, the product must first be notable. for computer programs, this normally means they must be reviewed or otherwise written about in a substantial matter by reliable independent sources. Until they are, they do not justify an article in the first place. New products can attract such interest as to get such reviews, but by no means all products do. Until they do, there cannot be an article. We write about things that are already notable. I have no objection to this going to AfD, but I like everyone else here thinks the result will be obvious.
The comments that you received when you first wrote the article were unfortunate. They were not by an administrator here, but by someone pretending to be one. They would not have been accepted from anyone--any administrator who would make such threats would undoubtedly be quickly removed from the position. When the matter was presented, it was determined that this was a user who had already been banned from Wikipedia, under another name, and the new name was blocked as well, permanently. I do not know nor need we figure out whether the motivation was a professional or personal rivalry or pure malice--there is no conceivable basis where it would have been acceptable here, or any respectable web site. the best advice I can give you is to wait until you have such reviews, and then rewrite the article accordingly, under a user name that does not itself include or suggest the name of the product. At such a point any of the people commenting here would be glad to check it for you DGG (talk) 23:59, 11 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I agree with all the above. In addition, you are editing from an IP address, and you cannot revoke your contributions under the GFDL. MuZemike 06:04, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- What absolute rubbish.
Certain pages are speedily deleted by making reference to "product endorsement" and when a page such as Mathematica is put forward as in breech of the product endorsement criteria no administrator or senior user can provide an explanation. An answer of "yes it's inconsistent" is simply unacceptable. Why isn't the Mathematica page deleted based on the product endorsement criteria? The page was originally deleted entirely based on "product endorsement" and yet as soon as I raise the related Mathematica page administrators quickly move to "notability". If the Mathematica page failed on both product endorsement and notability then something else would be raised. A new user can't win and an answer to a simple question will always be dodged by throwing up some other criteria. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.20.240.70 (talk) 07:53, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- As I've thought all along - wikipedia has double standards.
Dr Graham Seed —Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.20.240.70 (talk) 07:40, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- There are lots of criteria and policies on Wikipedia. Are you saying that your product is as notable, important, and widely-used as Mathematica? Stifle (talk) 08:38, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- As you know, pretty much anyone with an internet connection can edit Wikipedia. In order to ensure that we can produce a high quality encyclopaedia aiming towards high levels of accuracy and reliability we cannot just rely on the information given to use by editors. The threshold for information to be included in Wikipedia is "verifiability not truth" (see Wikipedia:Verifiability), information must be attributed to external reliable sources. Another of Wikipedia's core principles is to put forward a neutral point of view, this is also a founding principle of the Wikimedia Foundation - the charity which supports Wikipedia. In order to ensure a neutral point of view, third party sources usually have to be provided to support the information in an article, information put out by the subjects of an article themselves or companies associated with them is likely to be favourably biassed and so cannot form the sole basis of a neutral article. A simple Google News search of Mathematica ([2]) gives 100's of results from third party reliable sources including PC World and the Wall Street Journal, these can form the basis of a verifiable, neutral encyclopaedia article free of unsupported original research. In short, until third party sources have covered a topic, whether it be a company, programme, person or other it is not usually possible to write an article that meets Wikipedia's primary inclusion criteria of verifiability, neutrality and no original research. If and when your product has been covered by independent, reliable sources it should be possible to have an article about it included. Guest9999 (talk) 11:39, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- Again - I repeat the question but what about the Mathematica page ultimately being a product endorsement?
I reiterate my main point that if certain users/administrators/moderators choose to keep a page then product endorsement goes out the window. Your reply effectively states this conclusion by seeking other criteria in which to accept a page. In each of the above replies I still haven't seen a satisfactory reply/answer to whether or not the Mathematica page breaks the product endorsement rules. I suspect that no one wants to answer this question as it would mean deleting tens of thousands of other pages. Fine, but don't delete other pages based entirely and purely on "product endorsement". Dr Graham Seed
- Looking at the current state of the Mathematica article I would say it is not among Wikipedia's best. Most of the content is purely descriptive of the product with no information on its critical reception. Having said that the information that is there appears to be presented in a neutral fashion and because of the sources available the article could be improved to give a greater critical context. No Wikipedia article is perfect and even the very best are continually edited and improved. The key thing is that improvement to a point of acceptability is possible. Product endorsement does not meet that a product cannot be described or that praise it has received cannot be mentioned, rather that "Articles about companies and products are written in an objective and unbiased style" - an article about something that has received many positive reviews would reflect that. When there are no reliable sources available for a topic there is no potential to improve it. Additionally when no mainstream or industry specific sources have mentioned a product then writing about it on Wikipedia is often seen as a form of promotion in itself - an article intended to promote or raise publicity for something is almost inevitably not neutral and so not acceptable. This applies to articles about people, companies, bands (for example those who's only coverage is their MySpace page) and any other entity. In order to determine which topics can meet the primary inclusion criteria - which I mentioned above - Wikipedia has developed a set of guidelines. the basic principle behind them is "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.". If a topic meets this criterion an article about it will likely be kept (with exceptions such as copyright violations and pages intended only to disparage or unambiguously promote their subjects) this applies even if the article is not in a great state as anyone can edit and improve it.
Essentially the difference between your article and the Mathematica article is the difference in the topics of the articles. One has received sufficient coverage from relaible sources that a high quality, verifiable, neutral encyclopaedia article could possibly be written, one has not. Guest9999 (talk) 13:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
- I've been talking to Graham (Hedgehog0/212.20.240.70) since this issue first surfaced on the WP:Help desk. A vandal had threatened Graham with legal/police action, and was then blocked (IIRC). Graham had been - and indeed still is - working on an article, which was then subsequently moved to userspace. Most recently, it has been deleted, and then restored (by the deleting admin). In terms of WP:DRV I'm not convinced that there is anything to be done - the article was deleted from userspace and then restored to userspace. In terms of WP:BITE my goal throughout this has been to rectify the appalling treatment Graham received from a vandal, and mitigate the hard knocks he might receive from ordinary, well-intentioned editors. I suggested that Graham create an account instead of editing as an IP, and then use a sub-page of the registered account to work on his article. Someone mentioned above that "Hedgehog0" is a username violation; if it is then that is my fault, not Graham's, and I ask that we work amicably with Graham to address that issue. Regarding the userspace article itself, since it has been restored all I can ask is that if anyone is able to provide friendly and helpful advice to Graham then I am sure he would appreciate it. He has taken on board the comments I've made, but I'm one editor with limited skills and knowledge. Cheers, This flag once was redpropagandadeeds 11:11, 14 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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