Old Man Murray Entry Deleted From Wikipedia 432
shoptroll writes "In what can be best described as an unfortunate interpretation of the 'notability standards' at Wikipedia, Rock, Paper, Shotgun reports that the entry for Old Man Murray, once a mainstay of PC Gaming reviews and commentary, has been deleted. A sad day for gaming journalism everywhere." This is notable both because Old Man Murray was completely and totally awesome, but also because it was notable and influential on countless writers.
Sad state of deletionist wankers (Score:5, Informative)
The deletion of OMM was instigated by Ben Schumin, a sad man who still holds a grudge against Erik Wolpaw, a writer at OMM, now working for Valve as a writer for games such as Portal. The fact that some sad sack like him can point at an article and say "this should be deleted" and the circle jerk of deletionist admins ignore the salient points made by users and experts of games journalism such as Kieron Gillen, delete the article and then pat themselves on the back for a job well done.
Barnstars all-round you deletionist creeps, keep ruining Wikipedia one kangaroo-court AfD at a time.
Wikipedia should allow any info (Score:5, Informative)
Bias in Wikipedia (Score:2, Informative)
This is why I quit writing for wikipedia. I would spend hours writing and posting reference links only to be told my references weren't good enough.
I've had "editors" tell me Foxnews was biased and not a good citation, and then two months later tell me CNN was biased and not a good citation. Wikipedia is the most unreliable source of information on the internet IMHO.
I've also had articles and updates deleted because the citation website had removed the content or completely shut down.
Re:So why was it deleted? (Score:4, Informative)
The review itself cited some good sources. Edge magazine, which is pushing 20 years old itself, has extolled the site's historical relevance. The bother is that the admin in question judged those arguments as unacceptable. It should do better at deletion review, assuming it's been passed there.
Re:So why was it deleted? (Score:5, Informative)
Deletion is supposed to be the last resort [wikipedia.org] No notices were put up to improve the article, no messages sent to a relevant wikiproject for volunteers to help out. Just Ben Schumin (a man a writer of OMM made fun off a decade ago) tying to pull a fast one. Schumin also removed references to Erik Wolpaw from several pages recently.
Re:So why was it deleted? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, because PCGamer, Kokatu, Wired & the UGO Network are completely irrelevant when it comes to the gaming community.
Google Cache (Score:4, Informative)
For those who may be wondering what Old Man Murray is:
Wikipedia Google Cache [googleusercontent.com]
Oh the irony
Re:Notability (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So why was it deleted? (Score:4, Informative)
You'd have more of a point if "Wikipedia" was a person. It's not. The clique that handles anime articles has different standards than the clique that handles this, that, and the other. You can impose consistency but at the cost of causing people to complain about this or that article being left in or deleted.
Re:Wikipedia should allow any info (Score:4, Informative)
Interesting/informative isn't the defining characteristic of an encyclopedia, though. I mean, my PhD thesis is interesting, but it's not going up there. Encyclopedias are about a different kind of content, specifically a review of a subject. They've at least reached a useful metric for suitability with the guideline that articles should have proper secondary sources. That, IMO, should be the sole criterion - "can you write a properly referenced review of this subject?".
I agree with you. And I would have absolutely no problem with the conclusions from your Ph.D thesis being placed in the relevant entry for the topic your thesis deals with. Then your thesis would be cited as a reference.
The problem is that the deletionists are trying to put limits on the subject matter. I don't give a shit whether the topic of your dissertation is in Quantum Theory or Buffy Studies [wikipedia.org], as long as it follows your criteria of "properly referenced review of the subject." They want to be able to say, "this topic isn't important enough to be part of the encyclopedia," and they have no reason for doing that. It's not like they have some sort of space limit. Subject importance is relative. If I'm searching for it, it's important to me.
Re:So why was it deleted? (Score:5, Informative)
Disclaimer: I'm Entropy Stew in the wikipedia deletion discussion
Sources found included PC Gamer, Gabe Newell, RPS, Kotaku, Wired, MaximumPC, Edge Magazine, Quake 3, Postal 2, Serious Sam, the UGO network WHICH OMM WAS A MEMBER OF and a host of others. All were ignored. RPS reacted immediately to the news because it's insane, and their article being directly about OMM should assuage even unreasonable demands. Wikipedia absolutely loathes outsiders [wikipedia.org], though, so who knows if it will be restored?
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
It's back, in case anyone didn't notice (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Don't whine in TFA, just undelete it! (Score:4, Informative)
Normal users can't undelete articles, they can not even view them. A delete is something very different from an edit.