wikipedia campaign to remove Erik and Faz

In my experience, and from reading their help pages, Wikipedia's "notability" guideline is not based on real-world popularity or on logic, but rather on:
- being mentioned in a print newspaper, and
- not being disliked by a higher-up in the Wikipedia bureaucracy.

It's quite possible for a page to get deleted even if you have references in printed papers, because higher Wikipedia editors can often ignore their own rules when they want to get something done (this has happened before to a page I was trying to save). It is pretty clear that Wikipedia would be a lot better if they allowed a wider range of topics, because then a lot fewer people would search for something there and not find it; I'll just say that there are other wikis out there for a very good reason. If you want an article about Faz and Erik, you should give up on TOW and just spiff up the speedsolving wiki (so it looks professional and people outside this cubing community start visiting it).
 
qqwref said:
If you want an article about Faz and Erik, you should give up on TOW and just spiff up the speedsolving wiki (so it looks professional and people outside this cubing community start visiting it).
Click to expand...

:tu

I like this suggestion. It feels very much like Guinness world records for cubing. After getting tired with all the ridiculous rules they were imposing on us, we decided to have our own WCA sanctioned records, which are quoted in the press by the way. I hope Faz and Erik don't have their articles deleted on Wikipedia, but even if it happens the Speedsolving wiki really is the go to place for information about puzzles anyway, at least for the more-than-casual puzzle enthusiast.
 
I completely agree with qqwref here. I just gave the Wikipedia page about Notability a good read over, and it is clear about what is notable or not (and part of this "being clear" involves that it does not have to be world fame).

Since Erik and Feliks both have a decent bit of publicity in the press, we should dig those articles up and include them on the pages. I also think it wouldn't hurt to find some sort of link to a profile about Feliks. It is mentioned when he picked up his first speedcube and such, since there are no relevant links to that, it seems like that bit of his page could be deleted, and the only "relevant information" (that can be verified) would be his world records. That makes for a pretty bland page. If we could have some sort of profile online, a video (that Feliks made), or even a link to Cubecast Podcast Episode 02 would suffice (plus a link to CubeCast would get it some popularity and possibly a reason to have its own wikipedia article).

I think Erik's page needs more information on it, since the bulk of the page is his various (National and World) records. I realize that the reason it's scrolling is because the data is displayed on new lines, but it still makes the two (small) paragraphs look less important.

In short: I think Feliks and Erik both need more information on their page, about them (not just their records), and the information needs to be verifiable. The argument to keep the pages would at least be stronger at that point.
 
fazdad said:
What I like is the list on this page:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Articles_for_deletion/Feliks_Zemdegs

How are these people notable (competitive eating?????) and Erik and Faz not?
Click to expand...

They're more notable because, as much as you don't care about, many more people know who they are than know Feliks or Erik or any other cuber. Cuber's names are known almost exclusively within the cubing community, that's it. Again, this is not personal, they are just maintaining a standard of what is and isn't notable enough. They choose to draw a line so that their website isn't cluttered with 92 billion entries, and that line needs to be drawn somewhere.
 
Speedcubing isn't widely known at all, Many people don't even know competitions exist.

I tell my friends about upcoming competitions, but the first time (this goes for *every* person I've told) I told them I was going to a competition for cubing, they were shocked that such competitions exist, adults and children alike.
 
I would think people would agree that more people bowl then speedcubing, which should logically means Bowling Champions are more well known then Speed cubing champions.
 
And the typical "citation needed" card gets played again.

I personally have not heard of any of those names except "Walter Ray Williams Jr" (but he's been televised quite a bit). I'm curious why Robert Smith isn't on that list, as (if my memory is correct) he and Walter had a small rivalry (due to completely different bowling styles yet similar scores). The only reason I know that name is because I got involved in bowling for about a 1-2 year span about a year ago (is when it ended, anyhow). I could easily argue though that the competitive eaters names might be known to those who watch TV more than myself (since a decent amount of the eating contests are televised here). I could also argue that people who watch a good bit of ESPN (and its variations such as ESPN2) could possiblyy know a handful of the bowlers, arm wrestlers, and possibly darts players.

I forgot about this bit in my other post: Sarah Strong should be on Wikipedia as well. She made it to "The Bob & Tom Show" (radio show) due to her "Orangina" incident at US Nationals 2010. There is a website with random stuff that the show reads from, and apparently her comment made its way to that site. I was unable to find the post containing the orangina incident, but my girlfriend's Stepfather told me about "Some girl who does the Rubik's cube said orangaina like -----." I showed him the orangina commercial (with the cat) and that's when he piped up about it. I couldn't believe he of all people (he hates how much I do my cube) heard about that. Sarah Strong: You're famous!


RyanReese09 said:
Speedcubing isn't widely known at all, Many people don't even know competitions exist.

I tell my friends about upcoming competitions, but the first time (this goes for *every* person I've told) I told them I was going to a competition for cubing, they were shocked that such competitions exist, adults and children alike.
Click to expand...

I usually get the same results, although some local people remember seeing Mike Hughey on the news and vaguely remember him mentioning competitions.
 
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-Competitive Eating: Everyone has heard of it, and finds it's hilarious and disgusting to watch, so people are interested. Has been televised before, and shows have studied it on the Discovery Channel.
-Arm Wrestling: Every single person knows what that is. And most know there are competitions to see who is the strongest at it. This has also been televised by ESPN.
-Canoeing: Also known by anyone. It's even in the Olympics.
-Bowling: Another pass time activity that is popular throughout the world, and people know about. Also, the bowling championships are televised on ESPN.
-Darts: Another hobby that is widely known, and the championship is also televised on ESPN.


If you notice, all those sports, although not that big of a deal, are known throughout the country and world. And the one thing that puts them as notable, is that they have been televised by a major sporting channel. Just by being on ESPN means that people not only want to watch it, but also know about it having competitions.

As it's been said, most people don't know that there are speedcubers who are very fast, much less that there are competitions held for this.

When SpeedCubing Championships begin to be publicized, then you might have a stronger argument. But as of right now, it falls under the category of people not caring as much as other equal-level sports.
 
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ElectricDoodie said:
When SpeedCubing Championships begin to be televised on ESPN, then you might have a stronger argument. But as of right now, it falls under the category of people not caring as much as other equal-level sports.
Click to expand...

I think you should rephrase that to "When SpeedCubing Championships begin to be publicized...etc." ESPN is by far not the only channel that televises such events. Most local news channels show a lot of different sports. USA Network shows Tennis and Golf matches. Not only that, but television isn't the only way sports events get broadcast (many local high schools around her at minimum receive AM radio covereage. Don't forget about the sports events that get FM radio coverage). Also don't forget that championships alone don't have to be televised, regular competitions would suffice (though championships would make more sense). Don't forget that NZ Championship not even a year ago had a commercial about it.

I'm not sure of this, but didn't the 1980's (I want to say 1983 but I really can't remember) World Championship get televised?
 
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fatboyxpc said:
I think you should rephrase that to "When SpeedCubing Championships begin to be publicized...etc." ESPN is by far not the only channel that televises such events.
Click to expand...
That's true. I'll change it.
But, I said ESPN, because I believe they are the biggest Sports Channel in the US.






Specs112 said:
Really? I've never seen any of those on TV except eating.
Why was I not informed of this? I might actually watch them.
Ironically.
Click to expand...
Hahaha, yeah. I've watched the Bowling one and the Darts one.
Bowling becomes quite boring, when both players are getting Strikes at every throw, for 6 straight sets. But I wish I could do it.
 
We are talking about people who are notable. I dont get the argument about something has to be on tv to be notable - there is no evidence about how many watch or even remember who the competitors are. And what about those people who may be on Wiki that were never on television? In any case, Faz has been on tv heaps of times and Im sure Erik has too. I like the google trends thing - didnt know about that. I would suggest that if you are after hard evidence of notability - to know someones name and type it into google search is a more reliable source IMHO.
 
I'm not sure if Google has taken some strides to prevent this, but you can't necessarily count one phrased being searched as that phrase in general being more popular. If the google trend merely counts the number of times each phrase is googled, that means one person alone can submit that phrase countless times. I know that their search engine has things in place to prevent page rankings being influenced by this, but exactly what I'm unsure. I wouldn't be certain at all that Google trends shows notability.

If you search for Erik and Feliks on Google, you'll see some blog posts and news websites who mentions their names. I figure that's worth noting, in case anybody wants to edit the respecting Wikipedia articles so that they can be closer to being "notable."

I would also like to point out that Feliks is linked in the Rubik's Cube Wikipedia article, as well as the Speedcubing article. Erik was also linked in at least the Rubik's Cube article, before Feliks got the WR. I'm unsure if he was linked in the Speedcubing page, but I'm guessing so (since it has a list of world records). I feel it is "notable" when a person (not so savvy about this community) reads the WR time and sees the corresponding name. I'm curious to see how many times the WR holder's name (if linked) was clicked on after reading that bit in the Wikipedia article. If the readers are any bit as curious as me, I could see that number being a fairly high percentage of page hits (since the link has been edited in, of course).
 
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I think that what Feliks has against him is that his records are very recent. It may seem to some that he is not so notable in the long term.

However, if deletion is decided purely by the number of page views, maybe it is just too bad and Feliks and Erik. I guess we have to face the reality that the modern speedcubing revival is still young and not so well known but I'm sure that this will change in the future. I don't agree with the deletions so I hope that something can be done.

You would be surprised at just how well known some competitive eaters are here in Japan. Especially Kobayashi. Probably more than half of all Japanese people would know who he is. Bowling is also a very popular sport all around the world.
 
I really don't get, how some people here are fine with the deletion of those two pages.

No, they're not George Bush, but they are more famous than many people in wikipedia and we should support them! They deserve a place there. Yes, we have a speedsolving wiki for (notabale/celebrity) speedcubers, but the most famous of these should have a place also in wikipedia. We're not talking about an average or good cuber. We're talking about the best 2!
 
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