Requests for comment/"Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire" on Hebrew Wikipedia

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The following request for comments is closed. No further input was received for some years now, and the consensus in the existing discussion seems to be that wikis are entitled to set their own criteria for inclusion and this case falls within the aforementioned purview. Snowolf How can I help? 20:21, 17 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]



I was referred to this page by Guillaume Paumier. I open this discussion because the Hebrew Wikipedia community refuse to allow the creation of the article "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire", a Simpsons episode featured in 19 other Wikipedias and languages. I myself translated this article in 2008. It was deleted on Sep 2008 according to local policy (57% of the community voted to delete it). I accepted the fate of the article at the time. Now, two years later, as there are 19 other Wikipedias with this article, I asked for the recreation. I was declined ("nothing has changes since 2008, why recreate it?"). Even recreation for discussion purposes was not allowed.

I have been a member of the Hebrew Wikipedia community for many years now. I am a sysop, I run a bot, and I have contributed much of my time to the site. However, I now realize that this example represents a deeper problem within the Hebrew wikipedia community. The Hebrew Wikipedia is not free, is not open. Something needs to change. It cannot happen from within, and external intervention in required. I ask that you urge the community to accept such articles, for the benefit of the Hebrew speaker.

Note that on November the readers of the Hebrew Wikipedia will be asked to donate to Wikipedia. This fundraising is fair for the English Wikipedia readers who get to have 3 million articles. On the other hand, the readers of the Hebrew Wikipedia get to read only 110,000 articles. Why? Because the Hebrew Wikipedia community know whats best for their readers and does not allow them to read a translated Simpsons episode in their own language.

The Hebrew Wikipedia doesn't allow the translation of many Wikipedia articles which have been created in many other languages. This is not right.

Yoni, aka yonidebest@he.wiki 46.120.4.41 16:01, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Can you provide any further information, for example, what were the arguments for and against the original deletion? I see that he.wikipedia has articles on television series do I presume it wasn't some kind of general inclusion criterion that it fell foul of. QU TalkQu 19:09, 24 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Television series - yes. Episodes - no. Most opposed with no comment. Some comments include "not important enough", "against episodes articles", "more important articles need to be written", "this article is not important, dealing with such articles interferes with writing the more important ones". Note that at the time, the article was tranlated in 12 Wikipedias (now 20). [1]
Do you think this is fair for the Hebrew readers? Do you think this represents the spirit of Wikimedia? 46.120.4.41 15:25, 25 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Anyone care to respond? Otherwise, I think Guillaume Paumier was wrong to send me here to open a futile discussion. If this issue cannot be resolved here, it must be resolved somewhere else. The Hebrew Wikipedia simply does not represent a true Wikimedia project, free and all. 46.120.4.41 10:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
"against episodes articles", "more important articles need to be written", "this article is not important, dealing with such articles interferes with writing the more important ones". Without reading the inclusion policies, the first criterion seems as it may be valid (if poorly expressed) as it reflects a similar policy to en WP where episode articles only exist where the series article is "too large" (I simplify) to also contain details of the episodes and the episode is of itself notable. The other two criteria seem wrong. It is irrelevant if more important things need to be done as the "community" cannot direct individual editors to direct their work at specific things it deems to be important. So, for me, the reasons being given for deletion are poor. Whether the decision should be changed depends on what the inclusion criteria for the project are. If those criteria are not being followed in this deletion discussion, you have a case to have it reversed QU TalkQu 11:45, 29 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for your response. I don't know what you mean by "inclusion criteria". No official criterias exists on this subject. Thats why there are votes. If an official rigid criteria is made, then speedy deletion is used. The way you described the "too large" en.wiki policy, is sounds like en.wiki contributors are allowed to write episodes articles in lists/series articles. Even this is not allowed in he.wiki. No lists of such sort is allowed.
I write here because he.wiki's community's decessions do not comply with the spirit of Wikimedia. The fact ramains that the a certain article has been translated into 19 languages, but is forbidden to be translated into Hebrew. The he.wiki's community's decession should be overturned by Wikimedia Foundation, and the community should be asked to comply with their commitment and take example from the English Wikipedia, regarding inclusion criterias.
I remind you that the Foundation has intervened before in he.wiki's policies when they (we) allowed the upload of "wikipedia only" images. The Foundation found out of this, decided it was not in compliance with their spirit and targets, and ordered us to remove thousands of images in a week.
An intervention is in order. 46.120.4.41 18:25, 30 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]
My opinion: Criteria about what to include and what to exclude as valid articles are up to individual Wikipedias. In my opinion, outside intervention in such decisions is only warranted where a decision is reached that would contravene NPOV or similar principles. There is no rule that states that the same decision must be made on all wikis, and as such, the fact that the article already exists on several Wikipedias is not relevant. You are welcome to change the he: policy on this point, but that should be done by you and by others who share your opinion on he: itself, this is not a foundation issue. - Andre Engels 13:08, 5 November 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm going to have to agree with Andre above as well. What constitutes a valid topic for a particular community ("notability", as it's call on en.wikipedia), is a matter for that community. In this case, there seems to be a valid consensus on he.wikipedia that such articles do not meet the community's expectations for what should be included. Rather than seeking external intervention to enforce your own views, perhaps it would be more constructive to put together a good case as to why the article should be included, to try and change the opinion of some of your fellow editors? Craig Franklin 09:21, 7 December 2010 (UTC).[reply]