There was a disturbing exchange on the HacDC mailing list that I thought I should share here. As one contributor to the conversation characterized it, an editor on Wikipedia seems to be acting as a “one man cleaning service” of content. Among his many suggested deletions on Wikipedia are a number of hackerspaces, including HacDC. And when called to account, his rationalizations are, quite frankly, lame. This post to the HacDC list (and the linked-to article), by Rory McCann, explain the situation:
On Sat, Feb 19, 2011 at 6:51 PM, Rory McCann wrote:
As others have noticed, lots of hackerspaces on Wikipedia are suggested for deletion.
I noticed it first for the hackerspace I’m a member of, TOG in Dublin, Ireland. The article was lacking decent sources, so I’ve researched and updated it a lot now. (That’s one benefit from this, I’ve managed to improve that Wikipedia article a lot (I think)). I’ve written up my dealings so far.
The Wikipedia editor suggesting the deletion has made some strange claims, and seems to want to delete all hackerspaces. He seems to think hackerspaces are all in some big conspiracy. I added some sources to other hackerspaces (e.g. when we did the cupcake challenge) and he thought they were unsuitable, since “Artifactory is a hackerspace site, so it’s not independent of the subject. Same with 091Labs.”
If you have a hackerspace on Wikipedia, you should check it out, see if you need to add any sources, if the article is lacking. This might be a good thing for your hackerspace — since I spruced up the TOG article, I’ve realized how much our members have done!
If you’re a Wikipedia expert, could you have a look at that article and the AfD page for it. Do you have any advice on improving the article, any feedback? I’m not sure if I’m doing everything right and would appreciate feedback.
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