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Comment by thrdbndndn | Hacker News Reader

I probably will side with Wikipedia this time.

As mentioned in the discussion page [1], there doesn't seem to have any coverage from mass media about him, the only opponent in the discussion lists a bunch of sources/references that are either database-type websites, attendance lists, or product credit. These unfortunately don't really count, any professionals would have such things to a degree.

Also it looks like he self-edited the page [2]. This isn't strictly prohibited AFAIK, but it will raise self-promotion [3] red flag and obviously there were hardly any references in his editing.

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

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bruce_Faulconer&d...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest

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The idea of an encyclopaedia that only includes topics with significant mass media coverage is both incredibly crass and extremely depressing.

If that is the primary standard for inclusion (or “notability”) it is a huge shame and a wasted opportunity.

> an encyclopaedia that ..

Wikipedia has the loosest standard of inclusion among any encyclopedia ever existed, not sure why that's depressing.

Because it is a much tighter “standard” than it needs to be given the constraints.

It is depressing to think of all the effort that people put into writing articles that no one can ever benefit from, knowing there’s no good reason for their work to be wasted in this way.

Maybe they shouldnt write these articles on Wikipedia then? Make your own website or wiki and nobody is going to delete it.

Alternatively, critique threads like this and overall community discussions might eventually lead to a change of policy.

They also might not, but it's both a lot less work than your suggestion, and if succesful would lead to a better overall outcome.

So the problem is it is easier to edit wikipedia than creating ones own page or wiki? In that case, this should be adressed by better tools instead of convincing wikipedia to accept anything.

Perhaps! I also believe Wikipedia would be a better encyclopaedia and a more useful resource if it relaxed the notability requirements.

But it’s true that in the absence of that, the alternative is indeed to create a page on a different wiki/web publishing platform or one’s own website, or even to create another wiki, yes, and improving the tooling for that would also be great, of course.

Maybe it’d even be better if we used Wikipedia for less and brought the whole web closer to its original vision.

That diff in [2] is pretty egregious, and given the timing seems to be exactly what sparked the controversy. I think regardless of one's opinion on the outcome here, it's very odd that the author doesn't mention that Bruce Faulconer made a large edit to his own Wikipedia 19 days ago.

FWIW I personally am in the camp that Bruce Faulconer is probably sufficiently recognizable that a small stub article is justified and better than the redirect they added. However, this article skips over a lot of the story, possible disingenuously so.

OTOH, similarly small articles like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Godfree are all over wikipedia, the backlash seems completely unjustified.

You know what else isn't happy-times? When Wikipedia editors are trying to maintain things one way or another, and someone disagrees with what they've done, so they go off and write an article about how these terrible trolls have so heinously decided to efface such a luminary of accomplishment, et cetera.

Look! I'm going to promote a rather dull controversy to an online magazine and the front page of Hacker News! I'm 100% confident that this process will effect justice and result in only 100% positive and desirable contributions to Wikipedia! cough

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