Wikipedia deletes entry on PBWiki, the biggest hosted competitor with 550,000 wikis(en.wikipedia.org)
en.wikipedia.org
Wikipedia deletes entry on PBWiki, the biggest hosted competitor with 550,000 wikis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PBWiki
16 comments
I'm starting to see Wikipedians as cops with big mustaches. Mostly harmless, generally the good guys, but often symbolically overstepping their bounds.
I acknowledge the rigorous formalized system, but even a speedy response does not justify the offense.
It appears there is bias here. Instead of instructing us on how to participate, the members of the community should address it.
I acknowledge the rigorous formalized system, but even a speedy response does not justify the offense.
It appears there is bias here. Instead of instructing us on how to participate, the members of the community should address it.
I'm not a member of the community. I am, however, telling you how the community works. Let me be as clear as I can, from experience: the community does not care what you think about it. It's a Greenland-sized snowball full of human frailties and weaknesses and effort, picking up every piece of information and drama it rolls over, and getting out in front of it to try to steer it is a great way to lose an otherwise enjoyable weekend.
I'm no stranger. (To the point that I disassociate!) I couldn't agree more on the futility of trying to bend Wikipedia to your will.
But I reject the "play along, or else, I don't care" methodology. Democracies are often wrong. We have to hold the community as a whole accountable.
But I reject the "play along, or else, I don't care" methodology. Democracies are often wrong. We have to hold the community as a whole accountable.
Wikispaces (a PBWiki competitor) had our Wikipedia entry deleted in August 2006. At the time we were non-notable and had a medium- to low-quality entry written by others. During our deletion process, we argued that it was perfectly reasonable that Wikipedia delete our article, but it seemed quite unreasonable to single us out of a dozen other non-notable wiki farms (not to mention hundreds of other non-notable websites) that were not being considered for deletion. The response from the AfD commentors was in essence, "fine, go ahead and propose deletion for the wiki farms you think don't belong". We of course had no interest in doing that.
I was upset for some time that our article was deleted, but I'm not anymore. Wikipedia's standards don't work for small companies. In August 2006 when our article was deleted, we had less than 100,000 users and 50,000 wikis. Today we have 1.4M users, 595,000 wikis, and a healthy and growing business. A Wikipedia entry might be nice to have, but it doesn't have anything to do with how we serve our customers and build our business.
I was upset for some time that our article was deleted, but I'm not anymore. Wikipedia's standards don't work for small companies. In August 2006 when our article was deleted, we had less than 100,000 users and 50,000 wikis. Today we have 1.4M users, 595,000 wikis, and a healthy and growing business. A Wikipedia entry might be nice to have, but it doesn't have anything to do with how we serve our customers and build our business.
Maybe it just wasn't notable? I've never even heard of PBWiki.
It's fair that you might not have heard of PBwiki, but a Wikipedia admin should have at least given a cursory glance at what's out there, including in the last 30 days alone mentions in Newsweek, Forbes, the New York Times, LinuxInsider, WebWorkerDaily, Mashable, and Wired News.
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=pbwiki...
http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=pbwiki...
Maybe.
But Wikipedia is not the "list of all businesses in the world." It's not even the "list of all businesses that got mentioned by $X" where $X in Newsweek, Forbes,...
What has the company done that is special? Did it innovate in some special way? Was it involved in some notable affair? Is it the market leader in some domain?
If it's just another wiki farm that happens to have a PR department worth its money then it doesn't necessarily have to be listed in Wikipedia.
Note that I'm not saying that PBWiki shouldn't be listed (I don't know them, after all), but that I'm saying that hits on Google News don't imply that it _must_ be listed.
Deletions occur all the time. If you think an article got unfairly deleted, resurrect it and put in better citations.
On top of that, PBWiki is not even a competitor to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the wiki. MediaWiki is the software powering Wikipedia. PBwiki's software may compete with MediaWiki. PBwiki's hosting service competes with neither MediaWiki nor Wikipedia --- neither "product" is in the hosting business.
But Wikipedia is not the "list of all businesses in the world." It's not even the "list of all businesses that got mentioned by $X" where $X in Newsweek, Forbes,...
What has the company done that is special? Did it innovate in some special way? Was it involved in some notable affair? Is it the market leader in some domain?
If it's just another wiki farm that happens to have a PR department worth its money then it doesn't necessarily have to be listed in Wikipedia.
Note that I'm not saying that PBWiki shouldn't be listed (I don't know them, after all), but that I'm saying that hits on Google News don't imply that it _must_ be listed.
Deletions occur all the time. If you think an article got unfairly deleted, resurrect it and put in better citations.
On top of that, PBWiki is not even a competitor to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is the wiki. MediaWiki is the software powering Wikipedia. PBwiki's software may compete with MediaWiki. PBwiki's hosting service competes with neither MediaWiki nor Wikipedia --- neither "product" is in the hosting business.
It's odd that Wikipedians would delete the article, instead of just changing it to say, "PBWiki: a collaborative website for sandwich lovers."
That headline is a bit sensationalist. PBWiki isn't really a competitor to Wikipedia. Or Wikia, even.
Last known position:
23:37, September 15, 2008 Punkmorten (Talk | contribs) deleted "PBWiki" (R1: Redirect to a deleted, nonexistent, or invalid target)
I can't find the original PBWiki page but it's more likely that it wasn't up to snuff instead of a blatant conflict of interest delete.
23:37, September 15, 2008 Punkmorten (Talk | contribs) deleted "PBWiki" (R1: Redirect to a deleted, nonexistent, or invalid target)
I can't find the original PBWiki page but it's more likely that it wasn't up to snuff instead of a blatant conflict of interest delete.
The original's been deleted. (Google cached a copy of the page at http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:iwQCy4E4y_8J:en.wikiped... )
The decision looks to be on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...
Anyway, what strikes me as slightly odd is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_farms (try ranking by alexa), I'm sure it's only a matter of time until most of those linked articles that exist are deleted for non-notability as well, right?
The decision looks to be on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...
Anyway, what strikes me as slightly odd is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_farms (try ranking by alexa), I'm sure it's only a matter of time until most of those linked articles that exist are deleted for non-notability as well, right?
You can do it. Go ahead.
for what it's worth here's a wiki page comparing various wiki software and most of the other companies have pages.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software
the magic of wikipedia is of course that david weekly can get an intern to put back the page.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_wiki_software
the magic of wikipedia is of course that david weekly can get an intern to put back the page.
But David Weekly is honorable and tries to minimize self-interested editing and surreptitious sock-puppeting. ;)
I was going to point out that link, but I discovered one specific to wiki farms that isn't the same, but still has some very obscure wiki farms with articles on wikipedia.
On that particular comparison page of all the software, it does stick out like a sore thumb though..
On that particular comparison page of all the software, it does stick out like a sore thumb though..
Should the closing admin have glanced at Google News? Probably. Note that one of the AfD votes here makes indirect references to external sources, implying that they only peripherally cover PBWiki as "just another wiki farm". Maybe that's fair, maybe not, but you can see why in a "debate" with no dissenters, this just got closed quickly.
The fix for this is trivial. Take the original content of the PBWiki Wikipedia article --- it's still around --- and paste it back into the article. Add the external sources to the end (don't even worry about style, someone else will fix it). Done. An article with genuine sourcing in Newsweek, Forbes, and the New York Times isn't going to be deleted.
God I'm such a dork for knowing this stuff.