Blown To Bits

A Strange Loop at Wikipedia

Monday, September 22nd, 2008 by Harry Lewis

Wikipedia is a marvel. In spite of the fact that anyone can edit it and all editing is pseudonymous, it works. For a lot of math theorems, for example, the resource is fantastic for quick lookup. If you’ve never used it, try it for whatever interests you and judge for yourself. If the entry is imperfect, just fix it. You can see the result instantly.

Wikipedia is very inclusive since anyone can start an entry. But there are standards for inclusion; if you try to make an entry for your dog, it will get deleted, unless your dog is famous for some reason.

So, storage being cheap, someone started Deletionpedia, an inventory of all the entries that have been deleted from Wikipedia. It’s kind of interesting, I guess.

And then someone created a Wikipedia page about it.

Which was deleted. Go figure. It was restored, and a debate is raging among Wikipedians about the right and justice of all this. The page is still up for now, but that link may die at any moment.

2 Responses to “A Strange Loop at Wikipedia”

  1. Hilary Says:

    This seems like a more comprehensive version of Wikidumper (http://wikidumper.blogspot.com/), “The Official Appreciation Page for the Best of the Wikipedia Rejects”.

  2. pandora Says:

    Thank you very much for this info. Looking forward to next one.