[mindcrime]

Wikipedia seems stuck in an antiquated worldview where things like traditionally-published books with second- or third-hand reports of what happened, and which are frequently incomplete or wholly inaccurate, are nonetheless considered more authoritative than primary sources you can find with a ten-second Google search.

So much this. Wikipedia's processes and policies are - in ways - an outdated and archaic relic of a bygone time. OTOH, I don't have a definitive answer ready "off the cuff" on what the standard should be. But I think everybody involved needs to acknowledge that the current setup is wrong, and needs serious thought and revision.

And the really insidious thing about this, is the fundamental asymmetry of effort between creation and deletion. Creating a Wikipedia article can take hours, days, or longer, of effort. Tagging an article as AfD takes a few seconds. The actual deletion (once whatever discussion happens) probably takes even less time.

It's amazing that anybody creates Wikpedia articles at all, TBH. I mean, you can spend hours on top of hours working on something and have it all mooted in a few seconds.

[stock_toaster]

> And the really insidious thing about this, is the fundamental asymmetry of effort between creation and deletion. Creating a Wikipedia article can take hours, days, or longer, of effort. Tagging an article as AfD takes a few seconds. The actual deletion (once whatever discussion happens) probably takes even less time.

Not really relevant in this case (that the article talks about), but I don't think that it is so cut and dry as "someone spent time on this so we have to keep it". Consider AI spam, or a company (or government!) paying, or forcing!, people to write articles with whatever focus/leaning/slant they desire. It seems like a hard problem!

Maybe people forget how things were before wikipedia existed? Like many things run primarily by volunteers, it is messy and imperfect. It's arguably still pretty great, and I'm glad it is around.

[lambdaone]

The deletion discussion also takes time and consensus, and even then isn't irreversible; you can move the text to draftspace, [1] and try again when you do have proof of notability. Even if the article is deleted before you can respond you can always get a deletion review [0] get your article text back via temporary undeletion and move that to draftspace.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Drafts

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review

[qingcharles]

Right. I had an article I spent a bunch of time on last year that didn't pass muster for notability (first time I've had this happen) and shoved into draftspace where I got to edit it and retry it (unsuccessfully) a couple of times.

It was an article that really just slipped between the cracks of the rules, probably like the Odin one. All I did was take a breather for a few weeks, come back, edit it judiciously down to its core and resubmit it. It passed.

If Odin is important enough then one day there will be enough relevant citations to make it notable and it will be approved. Take a breather and come back.

[lambdaone]

Actually, I see the article has already been moved to draftspace, so nothing has been lost, except visibility, for which you will have to establish notability; you have six months to work on this before it gets deleted, and you can always go back for as many tries as you like.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Draft:Odin_(programming_langua...

[pwdisswordfishq]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Arguments_to_avoid_i...

[pphysch]

The fact is GingerBill or someone else could have kept the article up with enough money spent on the right PR firm that knows how to turn the Wikipedia knobs.

[hatefulheart]

This is also why the conclusion of the article is extremely bizarre. I’m not keeping my eyes peeled for more articles from this individual.

[mindcrime]

Not really relevant in this case (that the article talks about), but I don't think that it is so cut and dry as "someone spent time on this so we have to keep it".

No, and I'm not arguing for that. Just pointing out that that insidious nature makes contributing to Wikipedia a questionable activity for (a few|some|many|???) people.

To be clear, I'm not arguing for having NO standards at all for what's included, but I think there's room to rethink the nature of some of those standards.

[meheleventyone]

Have you ever considered that the high cost of contribution and low cost of moderation is why Wikipedia is successful?

Inverting it would destroy any open contribution system. See open source projects blanket rejecting AI generated PRs as an example. Basically trying to restore sanity when contribution suddenly has very small cost.

[Barrin92]

>an outdated and archaic relic of a bygone time

this isn't a meaningful criticism. An encyclopedia is a reference for established and public knowledge. It's by definition archaic, not an archive for whatever trends on social media, which seems to be the article's criterion for the relevance of Odin.

An encyclopedia shouldn't prioritize article creation, it should be restrictive about what it adds and make sure the content is long term relevant, accurate and sourced. If anything Wikipedia has already been way too lax with what it lets stand on the site. They should honestly do a big cleaning and remove more articles that barely cite any meaningful source or seem like they're self-promotion, because there's already too much of it.

[mindcrime]

See, to me, you're just leaning into the outdated and archaic aspect of this. Sure, that's the way encyclopedia's have been for a long time. But none of that means that they need to continue to work the same way. Technologies change, times change, standards change.

And that said... this whole issue may become moot anyway. Perhaps LLM powered AI systems (or whatever comes after them) will take the place of Wikipedia for certain classes of queries, that one might want to conduct. Eg, if a person wants to know about Odin and ChatGPT or Gemini can tell them all about Odin, maybe it's less important that Odin have a dedicated Wikipedia page (note: just an example, I'm not trying to make any particular commentary on Odin per-se).

[Morromist]

"It's amazing that anybody creates Wikpedia articles at all"

Yeh. This is why I stopped editing wikipedia very often. They are maniacal about deleting things that I consider noteworthy but others don't. I still love wikipedia and think its the best website on the internet, but this is probably its biggest flaw.

[zerobees]

> "It's amazing that anybody creates Wikpedia articles at all"

Very few people do, which actually makes it worse: of course the spammers and the hustlers are still motivated, so the needle moves more firmly into the territory of "most newcomer contributions are made in bad faith". Editors and admins feel increasingly under siege, so they respond more aggressively to everything.

It's basically the same problem as with real-world policing: because the cops overwhelmingly have deal with "problem" cases (you call them about burglars or drug dealers, not to tell them you baked some cookies), they develop a skewed perception of the average citizen and... well.

[twister2920]

Cops actually spend the vast majority of their time policing traffic violations and responding to non-emergency calls. Not in GTA-style shootouts.

[pessimizer]

Traffic violations and non-emergencies that you would call the police over are problems. That's why we involve the police. Video games are irrelevant.

[lambdaone]

"They are maniacal about deleting things that I consider noteworthy but others don't" is exactly the point of the notability policy in the first place.

Otherwise Wikipedia would almost instantly fill up with crap.

[Morromist]

I see what you mean, but I've written a fair number of wikipedia articles at the behest of professors who are experts in their fields and were annoyed that X person wasn't mentioned. The articles were eventually deleted.

The professors should probably be the ones who decide what is notable in my view. That a small group of wikipedia editors did not appreciate the significance of the persons isn't surpising, they can't be experts about everything.

[fragmede]

Because, in 2026, hard drives are really small and can't hold much information, that we need to limit the world's freely and globally available editable encyclopedia, too what a select group of individuals consider noteworthy. No possible editorial bias there!

Hard drives can hold lots of data these days, and text compresses rather well.

[lambdaone]

You can write about whatever you like and put it on the web, just not in Wikipedia for which, as has been said exhaustively above, there are clearly laid out admissions criteria, not just the whims of a "select group". You are entirely free to contribute to articles-for-deletion process yourself.

Wikipedia does not exist to be a soapbox, self-publishing host or advertising medium, and having a Wikipedia article is not a human right.

[ninjascotsman]

It is filled with crap for example London Bus routes

[lambdaone]

Even the bus route articles seem to have drawn sufficient reliable-sources attention to merit them being kept. The policy is clear and definitive.

[NordStreamYacht]

They even roll back corrections to grammar. Power tripping overrides common sense.

[shevy-java]

This could be automatic. I noticed this myself because I corrected both typos in english and german wikipedia; sometimes they are reverted, sometimes not. There seems no logic in it, so I assumed that in some cases this must have been automatic wiki bots reverting something.

[NordStreamYacht]

This was like 10 years ago. Long before the real invasion of the bots. I don't even remember the username or password of my account any more.

[Nnnes]

The main anti-vandalism bot ClueBot was created in 2007, and its successor ClueBot NG in 2010. They certainly have false positives from time to time, but that doesn't mean they aren't the most useful bots on the website.

[Gander5739]

It aims to have a false positive rate of 0.1%

[andrepd]

Anti-vandalism bots have been used for much longer than 10 years lol

[NordStreamYacht]

Don't know, don't care. Wikipedia is not a major source of information for me any more, the summaries from various search engines are enough.

For everything else there's grok.

[NordStreamYacht]

I would expect a bot to be consistent. Wikipedia editors? Not so much.

[mberning]

This happened to me back in college. I authored a couple pages for some bands that I was in to, probably spent weeks pulling together history, lineup, albums, eps, etc. only to have them deleted unceremoniously with no recourse. That was my first and last attempt to contribute to wikipedia.

[Dfol]

Same, I understand the editors/admins can't be experts on every topic but just because THEY don't think something is notable doesn't mean most people don't either.

[bawolff]

In general, it should be clear from the article if the subject is notable. Admins don't have to be an expert, they just have to read the article.

Notable is not the same as popular.

[mberning]

Notability is arguably even more subjective than popularity.

[Gander5739]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_one_cares_about_y...

[yorwba]

If you don't care about the notability filter and independent confirmation provided by secondary sources, you don't need Wikipedia. Just be your own primary source publishing whatever you want! You can even make it a wiki and let anyone else add to it too!

I guess the reason people aren't content with that approach and still want a Wikipedia article is because Wikipedia has much higher visibility. Great for SEO! Except if you can't get reputable third parties to publish about you, maybe you're not important enough to deserve that visibility.

[baranul]

That sounds like EverybodyWiki[1]. By the way, a number of programming languages have pages. Odin, Vlang, Zig, C3, etc... Surprised that fans have not put more lesser known or their favorites on it. Jai, for example.

[1]: https://en.everybodywiki.com/Everybodywiki:Welcome

[lambdaone]

The existence of EverybodyWiki demostrates the usefulness of Wikipedia's restrictions. Nothing is stopping you from either putting up your own website or writing on any of the free-access wikis; the reason people treat Wikipedia as a valuable resource is exactly because it won't publish anything indiscriminately. Having a Wikipedia article is not a right.

[zarzavat]

I was researching a public company the other day and I open their Wikipedia page: deleted.

I get it, probably it had been massaged by their PR department. But deleting the article punishes the readers by removing the very space for critical discussion of a topic with good SEO. Now if you want information on this company you will likely end up on their website, it seems like a reward to me.

[LunicLynx]

Not if the perception of Wikipedia is „truthful“ and „reliable“.

I’m saying neither, but in that case the article on Wikipedia puts weight behind the statements on the webpage.

I do see your argument: „But it would be adjusted to reflect the truth about it“. Honestly I don’t know enough about Wikipedia to agree or deny it. But given the amount of articles on it, i would lean in the direction that the motivation of a single few would win over the curators. Which means applying a vector that cannot be influenced by those few.

[zarzavat]

They can just strip out any problematic content and protect it. At least leave the lede and the infobox and whatever else can be salvaged.

Deleting the article means you can't even see the edit history to see why it was deleted. Whatever good work was done by other editors is gone cannot be built on. It's extreme.

[amiga386]

> Deleting the article means you can't even see the edit history to see why it was deleted.

You can see why it was deleted without that. Picking an example deleted article; the very first line, in a red box, is the deletion log entry.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xpanceo

> 00:57, 28 June 2026 .... deleted page Xpanceo (Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Xpanceo (...))

Click on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletio... and you will see all the reasons why it was deleted.

Wikipedia still has the full edit history of deleted articles, they can be restored upon request. The "hard work lost" argument is moot.

It's more important to speedily remove spam; keeping non-notable articles available is a huge win for spammers who put them there, every minute of endorsement by Wikipedia by continuing to exist there is a blessing. Wikipedia should keep the lede and infobox of the "EWKRHEKWJ.COM VIAGRA SALES COMPANY" article about how EWKRHEKWJ.COM sells the very finest viagra and cialis at the lowest prices, and their address is https://EWKRHEKWJ.COM ... because think of the hard work they must've put in to the article? Just leave that up and protect it? No thanks!

[zarzavat]

The article was for a public company. There are not many viagra companies that go public, except for Pfizer.

Deletion should be reserved for cases where the entire edit history is worthless or must be deleted for legal reasons etc. Articles on notable subjects where editors have put genuine work into editing them at some point should not be deleted.

[shevy-java]

Agreed. I also noticed this myself.

I understand that Wikipedia does not want corporate propaganda or other forms of propaganda, but whether a company exists or not at the time is an objective yes/no answer. It is probably more work to correct propaganda though, so articles are deleted. Would be better to simplify an article down to the bare bone instead, though, so I agree with you here.

[amiga386]

That a company exists at all can be verified in business registries (e.g. Companies House in the UK). But clearly having a wikipedia page at all is a big positive signal for a company, it means that they are "known", the GP admitted they were searching to get that kind of understanding. So you can see why a company would want a wikipedia article, even if all it said was "Blahblahco is a enterprise software company headquartered in Bumfuck Nowhere, Alabama" and nothing else.

Hence why, to even be in wikipedia, the company has to be notable, otherwise every LLC and partnership would want to boost their reputation (while ruining wikipedia's): the barrier to entry is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability_(organiza...

[7bees]

> once whatever discussion happens

Yes, it seems like a very fast process when you neglect the part that takes time.

[lesostep]

>> And the really insidious thing about this, is the fundamental asymmetry of effort between creation and deletion

There is more assymetry between writing yourself and checking other people work.

And it's by design, the work of one person could only be reliable if checked over and over by other people. People that agree on common rules

If you want to write a good article that wouldn't go through this rigorous checks and made abhor rigid rules, may I suggest writing a blogpost