It's been a couple of years since I checked on Clifford Pickover's The Wikipedia Knowledge Dump, a blog about deleted (or marked for deletion) Wikipedia articles. I forgot how much fun it is!
Maja Einstein is the younger sister of great scientist Albert Einstein. Maja was the only friend of Albert during his childhood. When little Albert saw his sister for the first time he thought she was a kind of toy and asked: “Yes, but where does it have its small wheels?”
Previously:
- WikiDumper, Cliff Pickover's new blog of Wikipedia rejects - Boing ...
- Clifford Pickover's "Neoreality" science fiction - Boing Boing
- Clifford Pickover's Reality Carnival - Boing Boing
- Boing Boing: 6000 people Clifford Pickover would like to meet
- Boing Boing: Interview with far-out mathematician, Clifford A ...
- Clifford Pickover is a scientist - Boing Boing
- Clifford Pickover's Gods blog - Boing Boing
- The Math Book: From Pythagoras to the 57th Dimension, 250 ...
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the article police seem a bit zealous at times
A lot of these seem pretty good to me. What gives?
Also, my spamblocker word is RECTAL.
My favorite Wikipedia article is one of the older versions of the page for the song Magic Dance by David Bowie from the Labyrinth soundtrack.
@1:
Wikipedia's deletion policies are reasonably sound. They do end up deleting some articles that are good, but in doing so, help ensure that the articles can be made reliable and accurate.
Essentially, subjects need to be notable enough that they have multiple independent sources about them. Without those sources, writing a solid article would be impossible. Someone might be able to write a very useful article with a single source, but there would always be worries that the source might be inaccurate or biased; with multiple sources, this risk is significantly lessened. By having such restrictions, Wikipedia loses some articles that might have been useful, but also maintains a higher level of integrity than it would otherwise be able to have. By insisting on verifiability for articles, and deleting those that don't satisfy the conditions, we can better prevent original research by editors and articles that end up being bogus or incorrect because of a lack of sources.
And, of course, there are also articles that are simply absurd, and also articles about absurd theories/practices/quackery that are written by their proponents. In the latter case, it's often easier to delete the articles due to a lack of verifiability than to try to deal with the proponents and write a neutral article.
Note that these are only articles that were nominated for deletion. Some passed, some didn't. (e.g. I'm slightly surprised that Bacon, egg and cheese sandwich made it through - can you imagine if every conceivable combination of ingredients on bread had their own article?)
Also, what Wa said.
And by the way, the Doctor Steel article got kept recently, once someone was actually willing to take the time to dig up reliable sources on him, and to write an article that wasn't blatant advertising.
[Wikipedia is] like a sausage: you might like the taste of it, but you don't necessarily want to see how it's made. - Jimbo Wales.
BWAHAHAHAHA!
i don't think i've ever used Wikipedia for any sort of research
or even for entertainment purposes.
in fact, the internet is generally poor for research, especially scientific. i've seen error-filled science entries appear on multiple websites without any attempt to correct the errors - one can't beat good old books
The rejection of slow sex could be seen as discrimination on the basis of philosophical differences or simply age!
Wikipedia is filled with a bunch of self aggrandizing cliquish deletionists. It's why I don't contribute to it anymore.
@Kieran O'Neill:
In the mornings at the delis I frequent, the BEC seems to outnumber all other sandwich orders put together by 2 to 1 or so. So it's not just any old combination of ingredients, but I suspect it is a regional thing, as there aren't really delis outside NY metro area, and this phenomenon amazed a friend visiting from the South.
A bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich is definitely common even outside of NYC. [speaking as a midwesterner here]
Wikipedia has unreasonable and stupid deletion policies.
The deltionists are just a bunch of butthurt vengeful nerds pissing on people's hard work because somethingawful.com made them look stupid a few years ago with wikigroaning (look it up)
Their criteria for "notability" are retarded.
Something which is mentioned by two newspapers in bumblefuck, ak, is more notable than a podcast that has 30,000 subscribers?
@#11, Dequeued:
Damn straight. If I want to look up the 30,000 podcast, there's nowhere to verify the information. Hell, how do you even know it has 30,000 subscribers in the first place. Just having someone reputable be citedfor the information makes it that much better. Go Wikipedia!
That said, I hear that admins will give you copies of deleted articles if you ask nicely... A friend of mine got something that way.
Oh, and for examples of just some of the trash that gets deleted (and this is just the stuff considered "cute" or humorous enough to remember, so not even the tip of the iceberg): Wikipedia: Deleted articles with freaky titles.
@Dequeued: Do you honestly think deletion of articles on Wikipedia only started in 2007? Wikipedians were well aware of the problem highlighted in "Wikigroaning". Oh wait. Shut up, troll.
I like the Maja Einstein article. Interesting and informative. Happily, it appears to have been merged into an article about the Einstein family, rather than removed.
DELETE THE DELETIONISTS !!!! SPEEDILY !!!
another eternal font of the true flame: http://deletionpedia.dbatley.com
Yes mate, and the rest of us will calmly get on with making an encyclopaedia (minus "eternal fonts of the true flame" and SENTENCES IN ALLCAPS!1!!)