Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Washington/GNIS cleanup
We need to slow down
[edit]To the GNIS cleanup crew and other editors participating in the project,
We need to slow down. While I am massive fan of retaining as much knowledge as possible, the GNIS cleanup (I believe) is missing the bigger picture here in what is ultimately a necessary and important project. Removing knowledge of places that exist or did exist should be handled with more care and deliberation, especially in a collaborative sense.
I want to start out, as I have several times already over the last two months, stating my appreciation of this undertaking and its importance. There is no doubt that there are thousands upon thousands of place/community articles that the project has to examine and determine their validity. That should be applauded and other editors, like myself, should stand in awe of that seemingly monumental task. My stance on that has not changed, nor will it.
And because it is a daunting one, this cleanup task is also understandably in the vortex of the checklist syndrome, i.e. "let's get it done". This is not an attack on any GNIS cleanup editor's WP:AGF, just pointing out the natural human condition of moving on to the next thing because we gotta get this done, and in doing so, rushing a process unknowingly because of the hyperfocus on the larger picture. While PROD procedures are expected to only be undertaken after careful scrutiny, no editor has access to every single possible source. I have already observed numerous statements of "no other sourcing could be found" or some other similar statement, only for other editors to find plenty. There are PROD's where the explanation is that the current refs aren't trustworthy, but no mention of attempts to find anything else, but deletion is still requested despite obvious WP:DOUBT. I want to make this very clear - THIS IS NOT AN ATTACK on the good faith efforts of any GNIS cleanup member - no editor has access to every single possible source.
In the same vein, no GNIS team member has all the local experience or knowledge, either. I observe very little outreach to either article creators or editors with experience in the regions the GNIS project is focused on. The PROD is introduced first, then everyone else has to catch up. For instance, due to being on a vacation, I was unable to be around for the PROD and eventual deletion of Ceres, Washington. Despite my interest in editing here in Western Washington, particularly the region this community once belonged to, I could have easily supplied references from a dozen sources totaling almost one-hundred mentions/stories/accounts proving the prior existence of the Ceres community. The article could have been expanded, reclassified as a former community, and it would have been a collaborative effort, saving and correcting an article and therefore providing it to the interested reader. Had I not glanced at my watchlist, I may never have known the page was gone until who knows when and would've been possibly unaware of the GNIS cleanup project until other pages were deleted.
Instead, articles like Ceres under this GNIS cleanup have to go thru another step of requesting undeletion, and potentially causing humiliation to the original article creator, to the editors who have worked on the page, as well as members of the GNIS team and editors who voted to delete, i.e. a pie-in-the-face embarrassment scenario. From what I understand, PROD is one method, but it doesn't have to be the first. If there is a lack of sources, and the GNIS team has done the best due diligence they can, then AfD the article or reach out via a talk page. Discuss it first. Reach out to your fellow editors. Those editors may have sources the GNIS crew can't, don't, or couldn't possibly have.
But furthermore, those editors have an experience a GNIS editor may not. This is nothing odd - the average editor will edit what they know. Many place/community articles are edited, watched, pared down, scaled up, by local Wikipedians. Tap into that pool.
There is another concern I have, and that is a feeling that some GNIS cleanup decisions to go PROD are being based on potential WP:OR. I refer to the many PROD descriptions, or AfD talks, were current satellite maps/photos are being used to determine that a community doesn't/has never existed. Also, I've seen some decisions based/bolstered on claims that due to topography, no community or town could have been built there. Clever, ingenious, and takes smarts, no doubt - but that is not how Wikipedia is supposed to be edited. What fails to exist today does not mean it failed to exist yesterday.
A final issue that I cannot shake is the approach of a very small number, and certainly not all, of the GNIS cleanup crew and their interactions and defensiveness towards editors who wish to discuss, and defend, keeping or rewriting PROD or AfD articles. I have so far observed curious editors acting in good faith being accused of being difficult, wasting everyone's time, being uneducated about how Wiki processes work, and that sourcing brought by a defending editor is never enough, or unilaterally declared circumspect because a GNIS editor can't access it. I myself have been accused of "raging", that I need to "calm down", that I'm not acting in good faith, and in a conversation where I was not pinged, declared uncooperative despite everything to the contrary. I've observed editors, some with massive track records, being openly mocked because they began one of these potentially deleted GNIS articles to begin with. Unfortunately, editors who have undergone these kinds of approaches - again from a very limited number of the GNIS team - seem to just vanish. And who can blame them. Who wants the hassle, but more importantly, who wants to be treated that way?
* I have intentionally not linked to any editor interaction, or any specific PROD or AfD due to concerns over WP:CANVASS and grouping editors in to this conversation that do not warrant being wrapped up into it. Also, any issues with WP:CIVILITY are better suited at an ANI discussion, or between the editors involved. That should be up to them.
In closing, it's been a long read, so let's just sum up - slow down, reach out, be collaborative. Be willing to listen to other editors who might be more in the know. Work together. This project, as awesome in its scope as it is in the necessity of it, has a clear, obvious, understandably attached negative trait - the potential loss of knowledge. We need to be more mindful of that part of the overall project, and working together can make sure that what is false is determined to be truly false, what is not correct can be corrected, and what is right can remain right.
My thanks for your time,