User:MJL/Wikipedia YouTube video script

This video, I asked the Wikipedia community to write the script for my YouTube channel. I offered to say anything that was written on this page as long as it (1) didn't violate any of YouTube's or Wikipedia's policies, (2) stayed family friendly and doesn't involve any sensitive topic, and (3) was written in the third person to make it clear that I don't personally endorse any of the content in this video.

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Actually, that whole preamble was a lie; the content is pretty good. Even though there might have been some of preamble about how it isn't, you can totally ignore that. MJL is short for Madison Jokester Lemonsnout after all.

Wikipedia is a wonderful place, full of wonderful editors who work in good faith towards achieving the goal of making all human knowledge freely available. On the English-language Wikipedia, the crowned jewel of all versions of Wikipedia, there are over five million articles. And yet, there is are a lot of topics that it does not cover. One might think that this is simply because Wikipedia is not fully built yet. To a large extent, this is true; Wikipedia has a lot more information on any given town in Rhode Island than the typical Kurdish village. But sometimes, the editors of Wikipedia choose not to cover particular subjects. And sometimes, even, Wikipedia editors choose to delete articles that contained lots of well-sourced information.

Why? Well, that's today's topic: Deletionism (and Inclusionism) on Wikipedia.

Funny enough, that an article is really small (or, a stub, as Wikipedians call it) isn't a valid reason to delete an article on its own, provided that there is enough context and coverage of the article's subject. Articles should not ordinarily be deleted just because they are poorly written, so long as ordinary editing can improve them and make them compliant with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. But there are some article topics that can't be fixed through ordinary editing. And that's where deletion comes into play.

A little bit about why Wikipedia decides to delete articles—there are several reasons for this (many of which can be found at Wikipedia:DEL-REASON), but some common ones are as follows:

1. The article's subject is wholly original research;
2. The article is an unsourced biography of a living person;
3. The article is a copyright violation;
4. The article subject is not "notable". More on that in a bit.

Basically, Wikipedia deletes articles that will never have a chance to meet its policies, are so bad that none of the content can be reused, or where the article's topic might not be worth including. And it's that last one that has generated a lot of debate over the years.

You see, in the earliest days of Wikipedia, there weren't really all that many rules. The main focus was on building up the size of Wikipedia so that it could cover a lot of information and quality was often (but not always) secondary to the fact that an article existed. But as time went on, and as Wikipedia began to grow, an increasing number of editors started to put forward the idea that Wikipedia shouldn't cover everything. Your house, for example, probably doesn't deserve a Wikipedia article (unless you live in a really special house), though the White House certainly does. Over time, editors started to form standards for what sorts of things deserved to have articles and what sorts of things really shouldn't be on Wikipedia. And those standards—what Wikipedians refer to as "notability guidelines"—are at the core of most debates Wikipedia editors have over whether or not to delete an article.

Slightly awkwardly, due to an...unfortunate incident in early days editing, MJL is actually prohibited from nominating articles for deletion if it's about an animal - but for most editors, the process when you think something shouldn't be on Wikipedia has the following initial steps:

1. Can it be improved – perhaps finding some sources for that unsourced article? Better yet, can MJL be tricked into improving it for you, thus giving more time for meme viewing? Maybe it could be merged with or redirected to another article to keep the best of it?
2. What deletion route should you take – does it meet any of the speedy deletion criteria where any admin can remove it? Is it non-controversial, and anyone would want it gone? In which case "Proposed Deletion" will delete it after a week unless anyone objects. If you think someone might disagree, then to "Articles for Deletion" for a week+ of discussion and long policy spiels. More on that later.
3. What are the grounds for deletion? You've got to convince others on why it should be deleted, so you need to select a reason like those given earlier, and prove that it is the case.

But please—and MJL cannot stress this enough—do not confuse Wikipedia with one of its mirror or fork websites. One source says that in July 2020, there were well over a thousand mirrors and forks of the free encyclopaedia. This is terrible because, if one were to click on one of these mirror sites, the text would all be inverted inverted be all would text the, sites mirror, these of one on click to were one if, because terrible is this. Then the website proceeds to crash. As does the economy of Wikipedia.

Many of those mirrors and forks, in addition to their other faults, don't respect Wikipedia's deletion processes. One, called "deletionpedia" goes out of its way to preserve content that was deleted through the process described here.

As an example, MJL will now sing to you an awful song that was dumped into the mainspace on 10 March 2017 before being deleted a week later. The lede of the article gave incredibly helpful details on how to sing it; those details will not be provided here for copyvio reasons. But luckily for you, the lyrics (modified slightly to fit the tone requirements for this video) are royalty-free!

Wikipedia is the source of facts;
Even though the teacher overreacts;
Be it for fact-checking or simply for reading "George H. W. Bush broccoli comments"
MEDRS is the best substitute for medfacts you'll ever find
Kubrick with no infobox? Now this you can get behind
(Oof!)
Why stick for lame old print, when the society before us is ever changing
And Wikipedia's coverage of these broad topics is forever wide-ranging
Unknown olympians, minor league footballers, revision history's forever unchanging
But hey, at least now you know the entire process of gas exchanging
Well—and I won't say this whilst pleading—the best of the best are really worth reading
"Neil Harvey with the Australian cricket team in England in 1948" is truly intriguing
(Draftify!)
Wikipedia is do-it-yourself, one million edits speaks for itself
Up all night, underneath my eyes are purple bags
See "Ethiopia", that darn page got three maintenance tags
Probably got a sleep disorder, this wiki is in a spontaneous disorder
All of this talk page yelling leading us all Into Darkness
And just when it gets boring, they will start the edit warring
(COI!)
They have the absolute best articles
Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch
Amusement Today is five-hundred thousand bytes
Scrolling through recent changes, what do you want to cite
Lsjbot sucks but Luna is cool

Then the article proceeded to the 'References' section which included a single citation: a link to Google Docs.

Anyway, back to articles for deletion. An oversimplified description of the process is that, after someone nominates the page for deletion (hopefully with a proper deletion reason as described above), any other members of the community who wish to opine on whether the article should be deleted.

The terms "deletionism" and "inclusionism" discussed above refer to people's philosophy about how to handle deletion discussions. Inclusionists, as the name suggests, tend to prefer to include more articles than deletionists, who prefer to cull Wikipedia of what they don't think is notable. At least one editor thinks that the terms are not often used in good faith, but the writers of this script are divided on the question.

When the week passes, a Wikipedia administrator reads the discussion and determines whether, in their view, a "consensus" to delete has been reached. This does not necessarily mean that everyone has agreed, or even that a majority has. In a rare example, a discussion in which the participants were near-unanimously in favor of keeping was nevertheless closed as delete because " "[...] 'keep' arguments must directly address and attempt to refute [...] arguments for deletion in order to be given weight", although the decision was later deemed out of line and overturned.

Let us now conclude this video with a joke, copied in its entirety from Wikipedia:Don't tempt the wrath of the Whatever, from high atop the Thing.

So you're watching a discussion unfold in the backrooms of the project. Probably an RfA, but maybe it's a AfD or something. And you, in your infinite wisdom, decide to do some back-of-the-napkin math and proclaim "this is definitely gonna go the way I want it to, I'm 100% sure!" Because, after all, it's a mortal lock, and nothing could ever possibly go wrong, right?

Wrong. This is practically begging for the Whatever from high atop the Thing, to come down and mess up your day. Do not tempt the wrath of the Whatever, from high atop the Thing. Instead, patiently wait for the discussion to resolve. You will then be happy in the knowledge that you did not cause the inadvertent demise or disruption of the discussion by invoking a higher, sadistic power.

Should you find that you have tempted the wrath of the Whatever, from high atop the Thing, follow these simple steps:

1. Go outside.
2. Turn around three times.
3. Spit.
4. Also, curse.
   • Spit and curse.
     • Do both of them.
       • Go!

Thank you, and be sure and visit the Jimmy Carter Peanut Statue in Plains, Georgia.

P.S:

The FitnessGram™ Pacer Test is a multistage aerobic capacity test that progressively gets more difficult as it continues.

The 20 meter pacer test will begin in 30 seconds. Line up at the start.

The running speed starts slowly, but gets faster each minute after you hear this signal.

A single lap should be completed each time you hear this sound.

Remember to run in a straight line, and run as long as possible.

The second time you fail to complete a lap before the sound, your test is over.

The test will begin on the word start.

On your mark, get ready, start.