Bose AfD could use attention from experienced editors Options

[SnottyWong]

There's an AfD running currently that is attempting to delete about 10 articles, which I feel is being somewhat railroaded by inexperienced WP editors. I'm definitely not asking anyone to come and vote the way I want you to vote, but I feel that this AfD would be quickly resolved if it got the attention of a few experienced editors. If you're up to it, have a look:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Art...stereo_speakers

Thanks.

[Somey]

A LOT of these articles from audio and pro-musician gear manufacturers are probably written at least partially by company employees and PR people. Check out this extract from the bottom of the Korg timeline of major products (you have to scroll down a ways):

2007 - Korg Pa2X Pro - Improving on the almost perfect Pa1X Pro/Elite was a difficult challenge, that Korg faced with the usual, savvy sense of adventure. The result was the Pa2X Pro: the same solid feel of the predecessor, with an all new and innovative design, and the same sound technology advances introduced in Pa800 just a few months before.The Double MP3 Player/Recorder (optional in Pa800) was standard, and it was a shock: no more practical differences between SMF files and MP3 audio files. Slowing down and transposing MP3 files was the ordinary Korg extraordinary. Pa2X Pro clearly aimed at the professional musician, due to its improved 76 keybed, tiltable touch screen, phantom power, balanced in/out, digital audio output and internal clock.

I'm sure it's a fine synthesizer and I'd love to own one (if only for the internal clock, which I hear is super-accurate), but that's a little outside of what might be deemed the "NPOV" range, isn't it? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

[thekohser]

A LOT of these articles from audio and pro-musician gear manufacturers are probably written at least partially by company employees and PR people. Check out this extract from the bottom of the Korg timeline of major products (you have to scroll down a ways):

2007 - Korg Pa2X Pro - Improving on the almost perfect Pa1X Pro/Elite was a difficult challenge, that Korg faced with the usual, savvy sense of adventure. The result was the Pa2X Pro: the same solid feel of the predecessor, with an all new and innovative design, and the same sound technology advances introduced in Pa800 just a few months before.The Double MP3 Player/Recorder (optional in Pa800) was standard, and it was a shock: no more practical differences between SMF files and MP3 audio files. Slowing down and transposing MP3 files was the ordinary Korg extraordinary. Pa2X Pro clearly aimed at the professional musician, due to its improved 76 keybed, tiltable touch screen, phantom power, balanced in/out, digital audio output and internal clock.

I'm sure it's a fine synthesizer and I'd love to own one (if only for the internal clock, which I hear is super-accurate), but that's a little outside of what might be deemed the "NPOV" range, isn't it? (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/tongue.gif)

This is going into my upcoming book. Thanks, Somey. I haven't seen a more self-infatuated bit of text on Wikipedia since Elonka Dunin's biography!

Greg

[Somey]

This is going into my upcoming book. Thanks, Somey. I haven't seen a more self-infatuated bit of text on Wikipedia since Elonka Dunin's biography!

Admittedly, that's one of the more egregious examples. But this is ultimately a maintainability and consistency issue. There's really nothing wrong with being positive about a musical instrument, or musical instruments in general, or any class of companies and products as long as all of them are treated fairly in relation to others, but Wikipedia just isn't set up for that. Popularity and cultishness (towards companies/products that is, not necessarily Wikipedia-cultishness) always wins over science, expert review, adherence to sourcing guidelines, etc., etc.

Of course, it isn't just inconsistency from one company to the next, either - for example, an article like the one on Yamaha's Tyros 2 (T-H-L-K-D) digital workstation is clearly taken almost directly from marketing literature, but does not carry a tag that says "This article reads like an advertisement." Whereas, the article on the Yamaha Motif (T-H-L-K-D) does have the tag, but doesn't read so much like an advertisement at all - there's even a bit at the end that some might even consider back-handed criticism.

I can't claim to have read all the relevant articles of course, but I don't think the problem is anywhere near as bad on things like cars, weapons, and heavy machinery, to name three examples off the top of my head. Nor is it really all that bad, most days, on computer products and video games, paradoxically because of all the edit-warring that goes on. It's mostly on things like musical instruments, satellite/cable set-top boxes, mobile phones... things that many geek-types use, but don't quite understand the inner workings of quite so much. (There are a whopping 171 separate articles on individual Nokia mobile phone models alone.)

Another interesting case is Incat (T-H-L-K-D), a not-especially-prominent Australian builder of large, powered catamarans. I don't believe any other boat manufacturer has a special category with 19 separate articles devoted to their product line. Compare their article to something like Chris-Craft Industries (T-H-L-K-D) or the Brunswick Boat Group (T-H-L-K-D) - obviously someone from Incat is very keen on using Wikipedia to promote that company, while other boat manufacturers are all saying, ehh, we don't really need to worry about that demographic. So they haven't - and nobody else has either, because as everyone knows, geek-types don't buy boats.

The standard WP inclusionist reaction to this is, "the encyclopedia isn't finished yet," or "why don't you get cracking and write all those missing articles about different Brunswick boat models?" (As if!) But of course the solution that might theoretically be workable is not more individual-product articles for companies that don't already have huge numbers of them - the solution is to develop a consistent, fair approach and apply it across the board, ideally one which doesn't involve a huge unmaintainable mass of separate articles.

[Kelly Martin]

Another interesting case is Incat (T-H-L-K-D), a not-especially-prominent Australian builder of large, powered catamarans. I don't believe any other boat manufacturer has a special category with 19 separate articles devoted to their product line. Compare their article to something like Chris-Craft Industries (T-H-L-K-D) or the Brunswick Boat Group (T-H-L-K-D) - obviously someone from Incat is very keen on using Wikipedia to promote that company, while other boat manufacturers are all saying, ehh, we don't really need to worry about that demographic. So they haven't - and nobody else has either, because as everyone knows, geek-types don't buy boats.

And this is an example of how Wikipedia's stochastic process creates undue weight bias. Incat is, in the boat industry, a nobody, especially compared to someone like Chris-Craft or Zodiac Aerospace (whose article on Wikipedia is so out of date it doesn't even have the right name). There's no encyclopedic reason why Incat should have this much coverage—but as we've noted many times, Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia.

And of course the same thing happens within articles as well: the aspects of a topic that interest Wikipedia's readership get more prominence, and more attention, than the ones that don't. I bet you could put flatly idiotic financial data into a lot of business articles and it would stand unmolested for months, because very few people on Wikipedia care about financial data. (As an aside, most of Wikipedia's articles about finance were added by people trying to sell their latest investment book or gimmick anyway; don't trust anything you read on Wikipedia about finance.)