40% of Wikipedia is under threat from deletionists

Hi Andrea,
I caught this article well after it was published, so apologies for being late to the conversation.

I’m a little confused, and rather disheartened, to your approach to the subject of Wikipedia and the culture of volunteers that support the projects.

Do you want to see the movement succeed or are you so frustrated that you wish to see it expire? It would help me to understand the last few articles and what you hope to accomplish.

Perhaps there’s an opportunity to have further discourse and understanding, but at the moment it seems that you are very upset and not willing to engage with folks. I understand that, and I hope that one day we can have an open discussion. In case you haven’t seen it, Wikipedians have reached out to you on your talk page asking for a dialog.

As a long time contributor with over 50,000 edits who left the project (I’m assuming unhappily) you have experiences and feelings regarding the community and the unfortunately permissible behavior of some of its inhabitants. I’m sorry. I could regale you with efforts underway to address harassment, but I don’t think it would do much good and you can seek them out on your own.

I’m sorry you left unsatisfied - as many others have expressed with their own experiences here. That sucks and I understand why people feel the way they do. I work with the communities every day in my professional role, and in my volunteer time help support the Wikimedia movement and other open communities. This stuff is important. I thank you for bring attention to the issues. I politely ask you to please consider the impact your writing has on improving the involvement of folks in the movement - that is, if you want to see it succeed. :slight_smile:

While it’s not a big deal, when I mentioned the total count of stub articles to you in the other thread, I saw it as a positive. “Hey, look how many stubs exist/have survived.” You could have easily titled this article “100% of Wikipedia articles under threat from deletionists” and it still would have been true! :slight_smile:

Take care.

Disclosure: I work for the Wikimedia Foundation, but this post is written in my personal capacity and I do not speak for the foundation or anyone else within.

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