MODx Wikipedia article

The article on wikipedia has been marked for deletion(again) on 18 august. Could anyone check the discussion page on that and see what can be done about it ?

It’s the same guy that marked it for deletion before. Apparently now I’m working for MODx, and was paid to write a "glorious review"... which isn’t a review, but a factual article about it, complimented with relevant sources and links. Ugh, you just can’t win.

What a load of crap! I’m considering this to be nothing more than vandalism. Eleventeen’s article is very much up to the required standards, but this vandal who keeps marking the article for deletion, well... just look at the profile: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Kl4m

This user is a Wikipedia deletionist.

That says it all. It’s very disturbing to have the Wikipedia vandalized by such a character.

I am fairly new to wikipedia editing, but can’t you do anything about it? I mean I could take someone of the street and I doubt if he would see this is an advertisement. Did the admin even compare the old and new article?

Can you discuss this with an admin... I mean someone got to have *reasons* to do something, so you got to counter those reasons with good arguments and facts.

Or just re-insert the article every time when he/she deletes it?

I had posted to defend the article but to be honest I have decided to no longer bother. There are a number of reasons to just let them drop it including the fact that if one does a Google search and looks 10 pages deep you can’t find a really substantial article about MODx. That is not to say that the project is not noteworthy or brilliant it may not be ready for Wikipedia.

The people who have marked this for deletion are defending their point of view by citing broad issues and making no specific claim to the article’s validity. The criteria for deletion are many and the burden of proof of worthiness is completely on that of the authors and the credibility of the third party citation (which is limited in the entry).

Personally, I feel that MODx should come out of the shadows by getting some third party reviews from CMS testers and others who have no interest in the project other than academic or journalistic. If the project would become well known then WP would look stupid for lacking an entry. The truth is, that while MODx is great and used by hundreds if not thousands of people it does not have the user base and, more importantly the unbiased criticism, of WordPress, Joomla or Drupal.

So, I say proudly let it go! Save the article to your computer Eleventeen (thanks for writing it) and just let the Wikipedia Dogmatica drop it for now instead of trying to convince them of something they already made their mind up about when they marked it for deletion.

The problem with that stance it that the Wikipedia article is in-fact quite useful. It may not be perfect, but thats what wikipedia is about, let other step in and correct if they want. Furthermore, a Wikipedia enthusiast shouldn’t be able to walk in and mark it for deletion just because he is feeling like it and it boosts his ego. "Look mum, another article for deletion!" Which seems the case here.

@Paintbox
The change in my stance is due to my reading of the WP terms for posting articles. It has pointed to the fact that the burden of proof is and must be on the editor and not on WP to just support. In addition their policy on verifiable fact is also enlightening. Most of the material about MODx is just user documentation that is based on truth but WP clearly states that it is not about fact or truth but about verifiable fact where, again, the burden is on the editor. While is may seem that the WP admins are being overzealous but WPs policies actually state that editors should be ruthless in removing items that can’t be verified by independent sources that are available to be checked by the average reader/user of WP. In addition their policy states that documentation to support the articles should be in the language of the WP site (i.e. Wikipedia English) should be in Egnlish.

My change in stance is not because I don’t think that the information has value or important but if you are honest about it just doesn’t meet their standard (regardless whether the person who marked for deletion is a moron or not). MODx is young and just doesn’t have the external commentary, analysis and documentation from outside sources. If you look at most of the posts, articles and such they come from blogs. What MODx needs is reviews from reputable independent organizations, publications and more. Furthermore WP policy strongly recommends that personal blogs never be used for citation and reference as they can be to easily seen as biased or possible promotion (not that they are but it MAY appear as they may be) and Wikipedia wants their information and articles to never appear as anything more than factual encyclopediac articles. Things such as benefits and coloured (even inadvertantly so) featrures lists can give the impression of promotion.

If you really want to make this article stick. Drop everything but a factual paragraph about the project existing and that it had originated as a fork/module of Etomite.

I’ll leave this fight (albeit futile) to you all.

[DavidM: This might be a project for you to get more reviews from accredited media and insitutions]

Cheers all,

Jay

Save the article to your computer Eleventeen (thanks for writing it) and just let the Wikipedia Dogmatica drop it for now instead of trying to convince them of something they already made their mind up about when they marked it for deletion.

Already done. When I initially wrote it, I knew there was always the chance it might end up getting deleted for whatever reason. Having a new account just for this evidently wasn’t a good idea either, but I didn’t have much of a choice. Just last night I read an article about their deletion policy and new users (among other things) and realized I should have had someone who’s a well-established wikipedian from MODx post the article instead.

I get what you’re saying about not having enough valid sources. I spent about 5 hours writing that article, and most of the time I spent searching for reputable sources and came up with quite a few blogs, which I assumed wouldn’t be welcome. The opensourcecms.com article was probably the most reputable source I came across. Maybe by the time 097 is released, we’ll have some better sources to list...

Eleventeen,

It is not you who did not have enough valid sources it is MODx that doesn’t have enough third party articles. Odd though as it is a really great project, it needs to find an audience of people of influence that are not directly related to the CMS game. Maybe some PHP writers or some huge web devs that come to adopt the project as their CMS of choice and it gets noticed. Another idea may be to start offering up our MODx based projects to be set for press releases to PR Web and the like.

All the best,

Jay

Quote from: Eleventeen at Aug 19, 2007, 09:51 PM

Save the article to your computer Eleventeen (thanks for writing it) and just let the Wikipedia Dogmatica drop it for now instead of trying to convince them of something they already made their mind up about when they marked it for deletion.

Already done.

Maybe you can put a link to the article in the "sig" area of your forum posts?