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A comment on Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia Administrators.

Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by pb30 on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @01:44PM (#288277)
Rather than just complaining about Wikipedia, I've contested the deletion by removing the prod tag and added some sources from major publications. Please help add references from reliable sources (blogs dont count) or help copyedit the article.

Here's a good search for finding reliable sources: http://news.google.com/archivesearch?q=%22y+combinator%22+so...

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by pg on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @09:33PM (#288722)
reliable sources (blogs don't count)

Aren't there reliable blogs?

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by rms on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @09:41PM (#288729)
They're good for adding more information but bad for establishing notability (as per Wiki policy) because their reliability is contentious.

So yes, there are reliable blogs, but a post from Scoble and no mainstream media hits won't save an article from the deletionists.

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by cstejerean on Thursday August 28, 2008 @11:19AM (#289191)
I don't get Wikipedia at times. How is this article notable?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firearms_in_Miami_Vice

(I have use the wikipedia random page as my homepage)

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by pb30 on Thursday August 28, 2008 @11:59AM (#289229)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion...
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by DanielBMarkham on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @09:38PM (#288727)
But no commonly accepted way to validate their reliability
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by rsheridan6 on Thursday August 28, 2008 @10:34AM (#289145)
As if newspapers and books are reliable. I'd trust a comment at this website about YC by a YC applicant over a Business Week article.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by rokhayakebe on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @05:14PM (#288496)
Rather than just complaining about Wikipedia, I would love to see 2 smart guys in a garage create a competitor.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by hugh on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @07:19PM (#288618)
It's trivially easy for two smart guys in a garage to create a competitor.

It's difficult to persuade hundreds of thousands of people outside said garage to write the actual content.

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by echair on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @09:35PM (#288723)
I think most people would understand "create a competitor" to entail more than the strawman of mere implementation you seem to be taking it to mean.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by hugh on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @09:57PM (#288739)
The point is that the main problem can't be solved at the two-guys-in-a-garage level.

Two guys in a garage can create a wiki. Two guys in a garage with a million dollar PR budget can create a wiki and get it widely publicised. Two guys in a garage with a fifty million dollar budget can hire a bunch of writers to get the content kickstarted. But ultimately, the problem of persuading thousands of people to contribute to a brand new service is not a problem that anyone knows how to solve -- it either takes off or it doesn't.

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by rsheridan6 on Thursday August 28, 2008 @10:32AM (#289141)
The two guys have an advantage - lots of former editors are sick of Wikipedia, and non-deletionists have nowhere to go. I don't see any reason why two guys in a garage couldn't succeed.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by netcan on Thursday August 28, 2008 @06:33AM (#289000)
Well. It's a problem requiring a creative solution. It's certainly hard. I don't know how to do it, but I wouldn't say it's impossible or all up to fate.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by rms on Thursday August 28, 2008 @01:24AM (#288886)
Fork it.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by staticshock on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @09:03PM (#288690)
1) what does "competitor" translate to, for non-profits?

2) why write new source if your goal is just to launch another wiki?

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by pb30 on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @05:38PM (#288522)
http://citizendium.org/ ?
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by gojomo on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @06:32PM (#288585)
That's the wrong direction: more selective.

The right direction: Wikipedia with a constitutional bias against deletionism. Only false, illegal, or privacy-violating information should be deleted. Everything true should be welcomed.

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by hugh on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @07:24PM (#288621)
Sweet! You should start one of those.

I look forward to creating the article "List of random numbers generated by hugh's random number generator on September 18, 2008".

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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by rsheridan6 on Thursday August 28, 2008 @10:37AM (#289152)
That would be a useless article, but it would be harmless, assuming a sane policy that doesn't allow for terabyte-long articles that strain server resources. Nobody would link to it and nobody would read it, even if your really posted it - which you wouldn't, because you have better things to do.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by william42 on Thursday August 28, 2008 @01:46PM (#289327)
I look forward to watching it turn into the 4chan wiki.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by gojomo on Thursday August 28, 2008 @01:34AM (#288892)
At some point, an excessive contributor would have to sponsor their own material. It's a business model!
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by rokhayakebe on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @06:15PM (#288570)
Maybe, although they need to work on the UI. But good start.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by corentin on Thursday August 28, 2008 @06:30AM (#288998)
It was created years ago and it's called the world wide web.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by rbanffy on Thursday August 28, 2008 @08:08AM (#289050)
True, but it was created by one guy and one NeXT cube in a particle accelerator ;-) Talk about odd partnerships.
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Re:Y Combinator Article Nominated for Deletion by Wikipedia ... by silentbicycle on Wednesday August 27, 2008 @05:45PM (#288532)
Definitely. Wikipedia collectively has a lot of experience with holding off editing attempts by swarms of irritated people, and that's strongly influenced their editing standards. To my understanding, content posted without sources is useless at best, trolling at worst.
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