Unfair censorship and favouritism at Wikipedia.

I just had a Wikipedia entry on LingQ deleted. It was not even finished. The culture of the anonymous, holier than thou, moderator-censor is alive and well at Wikipedia, just like at the language learners' forum I was on.

I started editing a post on LingQ and went to lunch. When I came back it was gone, deleted. It was not even "proposed for deletion". I was not asked to edit or improve my entry. It was "speed deleted" (one of their deletion categories) as advertizing, which, of course, it is.

But look up Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone (software), Live Mocha, Berlitz language Schools or any other language system on Wikipedia, and you are likely to find it there. When does information become advertizing, and according to whom, and why allow some and not others?

Trying to figure out how to challenge the deletion on the Wikipedia website is like going through a maze. 

I knew that I had to make it look more like the other language system entries at Wikipedia, I had them open on my computer. I just had to go to lunch.  I have it saved in google documents but I do not want to continue working on it just to have it deleted again.

Their deletion of my LingQ entry is phony, like most of the aggressive anti-commercialism of the "everything for free" culture. In fact  all of these "free" advocates either use commercial products and services, or work for commercial companies in order to put bread on their table, and usually are very selective and unfair in how they apply their holier than thou principles.

Here is what I wrote.

LingQ is an online community and language learning method , created by Steve Kaufmann and his son Mark, who live in West Vancouver, Canada. The learning methodology is based on Steve Kaufmann's own experience in learning to speak 11 languages, as well as the influence of two important modern educators. These are Stephen Krashen, who emphasizes the crucial role of meaningful input in language acquisition; and Ivan Illitch, who proposed the creation of convivial learning communities to replace formal schooling.

LingQ members come from all continents and countries of the world. They create language content for each other, help each other, exchange language lessons with each other, and encourage each other. As a result, learners are able to choose from a constantly growing library of language content, graded by level of difficulty, in ten different languages. This content is available for free download, to listen to and read. At present, these  languages are English,  Spanish, Mandarin, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, German, Swedish, and Italian.

The LingQ community is encouraged to create "LingQs" in order to better notice the words, phrases and patterns of the language. In this way each member is constantly building up a personal database, which generates Flash Cards, statistical records of activity and achievement, and other learning functions customized to each learner.

Grammar instruction and error correction are available from member tutors but are considered less important than motivation, mutual encouragement and constant listening and reading and reviewing of words and phrases.

The term LingQ is a play on the word link. Language learning is considered a process of creating links; between words, sounds, meaning and people,and eventually between neurons as new language skills are acquired.

Steve Kaufmann has written a book about language learning called The Way of the Linguist, A Language Learning Odyssey. He maintains a blog called The Linguist on Language, and has a channel at Youtube explaining his language learning philosophy.

Comments

[Friedemann]

I feel that Wikipedia is a blessing in this world but I have never written or edited any article. What I like about the articles is the consistency in the language. I do feel that the text you wrote borders on what could be considered an advertisement. Most of the Wikipedia articles I have read sound more descriptive and neutral. I have not read the articles on your competition but I'll check them out.

I have just recently experienced censorship first hand on my last trip to China in July. Youtube, many Wikipedia articles and the entire lingq website were blocked, now that is censorship. Regarding your Wikipedia experience, I am sure as Lingq grows at some point there will be an article about it on wikipedia,

Friedemann

[Friedemann]

I have just read the Pimsleur wikipedia article and it does not sound as if Mr. Pimsleur himself has written it. In fact in the mid section it is somewhat critical of the system and points out the limited breadth of vocabulary taught in the Pimsleur courses. To me it sounds like a balanced assessment by someone not necessarily linked to Pimsleur (maybe the author was a Rosetta Stone manager...)

Friedemann

[Steve Kaufmann]

That is not the point Friedemann. Once the entry is up, other people are free to comment and criticize. Check out the Live Mocha entry.

I think the reason is that these other systems are better known.

[John]

Unfortunately, I agree with Mr. Friedemann. I think your article sounds a little bit too much like an advertisement, and with Wikipedia being a neutral third party, it's probably not objective enough for them to post. You may not see it as an advertisement, you may see it as a completely fair and honest review, but I think you are too close to this issue to see what the issue actually is.

Take this for example: "These are Stephen Krashen, who emphasizes the crucial role of meaningful input in language acquisition;". If you had omitted the word "crucial" it would have sounded a lot better, however adding the word crucial made it into an opinion, thereby making it sound more like an advertisement.

Two more examples that sound like an advertisement are "They create language content for each other, help each other, exchange language lessons with each other, and encourage each other. As a result, learners are able to choose from a constantly growing library of language content" and "In this way each member is constantly building up a personal database, which generates Flash Cards, statistical records of activity and achievement, and other learning functions customized to each learner." They sound almost a bit boastful and Wikipedia can not be seen as endorsing any one product in that way.

In the Rosetta Stone article, there is a whole section devoted to "Criticisms" which makes it a more balanced article. Although you say that people can go back and add and edit what you have written, the original article needs to be more objective in the first place.

I hope this helps you realize why they censored your article.

[Steve Kaufmann]

I never denied that it was advertizing. It was my understanding that articles at Wikipedia evolve with the contribution of others, adding, criticizing, editing etc.

[Steve Kaufmann]

John,

I fail to see why mentioning the fact that Krashen emphasizes the crucial role of input in language acquisition makes this post more of an advertisement. It is an advertisement!! So are the others.

[Sean]

I agree with the others:

It's very subjective. "Grammar instruction and error correction are available from member tutors but are considered less important than motivation, mutual encouragement and constant listening and reading and reviewing of words and phrases." in particular really strikes me as being very un-wiki. You can make it much more objective by writing in the active voice. I noticed that most of the heavily biased spots are also spots were passive voice was unnecessarily used.

It's got some mechanics problems that really derail the first paragraph.

Try to use more "action." For example, "The LingQ community is encouraged to create "LingQs" could be "The LingQ community creates "LingQs""

It would be better served by a bottom-up construction. For instance, you should introduce, first, that users have a personal database, and second that they are comprised of links. One strategy for wiki-proofing is to make sure you answer the "who/what/where/when" questions before you introduce the "how" questions.

Last, if the writing of this article didn't derail it, the paragraph about language learning did it. People spend their lives researching that concept, and it's not the place of a LingQ feature to suddenly sidestep into the SLA process.

I think it's unfair of you to start a wikimedia-hating campaign after your article got deleted. Of course you anticipated that it would go through an editing process, but it should at least start off well written to wikipedia standards, rather than what you might find on a flyer or random forum post.

[John]

I believe Sean is getting at basically the same thing I was. Wikipedia is not a place for advertising, it is a place for multiple sided viewpoints on one common topic. It is open to editing, but it must be well written before it can be added to or subtracted from. I also believe it's unfair of you to accuse Wikipedia is favoritism because favoritism is simply what was being conveyed by your article, thus by deleting it, they prevented favoritism.

By the way, mentioning about your book, blog, and YouTube channel may also be considered irrelevant to the post. If you were to write an article about yourself than it would be more acceptable, however in an article about the LingQ learning system, it is a little out of place. You could, however, post them at the bottom as an external link.

[Colin]

While not speaking to neutrality of Steve's write up of Lingq, I will say that I feel a "Lingq.com" article is a relevant Wikipedia article candidate. I also am unfamiliar with the article creation policies on Wikipedia but I would hope there is a way for speedy deletions to be debated and a process for legitimate articles to be fairly introduced. Perhaps, post a question at the help desk to get started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:HD

[Alex Case]

Basically, you should have waited for someone else to write a LinQ Wikipedia entry, which would have happened sooner or later. There have been many "scandals" of people editing biographical entries on themselves, and this seems similar.

[Steve Kaufmann]

What galls me is that this is not advertizing in the sense of creating brand awareness. Not many people would find this entry if they did not already know of LingQ. It is information about LingQ, and what is more, it is information that others are free to challenge, edit, and criticize, or add to.

LingQ is not widely known in the way that everyone knows about Rosetta Stone. However, among language enthusiasts on the web, LingQ is well known. It has just as much right to have a Wiki page as Live Mocha in my view. The decision to delete it, without any warning or discussion, was simply high handed arbitrary censorship.

[Keith]

I don't know if your wikipedia username easily identifies you or not, but if it does, your article on LingQ would probably be deleted no matter how objective it was. So don't create the page yourself.

My recommendation: Hire an experienced Wikipedia article writer to create the LingQ article. If he or she is able to write an informative article about LingQ that doesn't get deleted, then pay him or her for his or her services. If the writer is unsuccessful, then don't pay. That would be an agreement up-front of course.

[Sebastian]

I am an active author at the german wikipedia and often have to deal with such questions asked by new authors. With my global account I edit sometimes in the english wikipedia too, but I am not completely familiar with all the criteria there. Nevertheless I have to say that your entry really sounds like commercial. Also there are other mistakes: For example links to external sites never belong inside an article, there are no sources, ect...

Of course you are right Steve, an article evolves with the contribution of others. All of the mistakes of content and form in the article could be fixed by other authors. The problem is that often such articles stay very long without any edit inside the wikipedia. That would make wikipedia a platform for every kind of commercial. A few lines of commercial inside an article are no problem and can be rewritten quickly. If the whole article is commercial and it has to be completely rewritten anyway, it will be deleted in most cases.

But I see the main problem in the relevance.

In general wikipedia has something what we call in the german Wikipedia "Relevanzkriterien" or in english "Wikipedia:Notability".

Normally an article just can be deleted if he is nonsense at all, commercial, has no relevance at all (mostly somebody unimportant writing about himself) or for copyright violations. Everything else will just be proposed for deletion, if an editor believes that an article doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. In the following there will be a discussion about this topic in which everyone can participate. After 7 days an administrator decides about the request.

The question is: Is LingQ relevant for an wikipedia entry?

For the german wikipedia I can definately say NO. Maybe it is a bit solace that also Rosetta Stone, Livemocha or programs like ANKI doesn't have an own article there.

The english wiki writes the following (from Wikipedia:Notability (web)):

"Criteria

Keeping in mind that all articles must conform with our policy on verifiability to reliable sources, and that primary sources alone are not sufficient to establish notability; web-specific content is deemed notable based on meeting any one of the following criteria.

1. The content itself has been the subject of multiple non-trivial published works whose source is independent of the site itself...
2. The website or content has won a well-known and independent award from either a publication or organization.
3. The content is distributed via a medium which is both respected and independent of the creators, either through an online newspaper or magazine, an online publisher, or an online broadcaster;except for trivial distribution including content being hosted on sites without editorial oversight (such as YouTube, MySpace, GeoCities, Newgrounds, personal blogs, etc.)."

As you can see in the deletion log, that was also one of the reasons for the administrator to delete the article:

21:11, 25 August 2009 Smashville (talk|contribs) deleted "LingQ" (A7: No indication that the article may meet guidelines for inclusion: G11: Unambiguous advertising or promotion)

PS: Sorry for my bad english...I am a bit in a hurry today.

[Meathead Jones]

Steve, please don't worry about Wikipedia - it is NOT a serious source of information, and you are much better avoiding it.

I mean, this self-righteous fool who deleted your article could quite easily have been some teenager in his bedroom, or some unemployed loser with nothing better to do with his time.

Even if your article had remained, ANYONE would have been free to screw around with it - regardless of boring little considerations like knowledge or competence.

One thing I have noticed about forum-moderators is that they are often just kids - people who have not yet attained the experience and maturity to be taken seriously any place in the 'real world'. Yet on the internet they think they can hold authority!?

This is the reason why I avoid language learning forums where there is any kind of moderation. It is bad enough having my freedom of speech taken away by anyone - but I certainly AM NOT going to have it taken away by some stupid teenager!

[Sebastian]

Small correction: "For example links to external sites never belong inside an article" of course I mean the main text.

Maybe I add something here. Steve you wrote: "However, among language enthusiasts on the web, LingQ is well known. It has just as much right to have a Wiki page as Live Mocha in my view."

I believe you. But wikipedia is an encyclopedia which is build up on facts. Everyone can come and say "My site is very popular..." But there is no proof. If you would write for example how many members LingQ has (of course based on a reliable source, what could be even the LingQ website) that would be the first step to create relevance for this article.

[Sebastian]

@Meathead: Why you insult people you don't know? This administrator just acted based on the wikipedia rules. Neither did he want to aggravate anybody nor did he play with his "power".

And yes, wikipedia has mistakes. I don't want to defend the english wikipedia, because especially the english one is full of articles without sources at all. The german has a much higher reliability and higher relevance criteria. For example 90% of all journalists in germany use it.

[Meathead Jones]

Sebastian said: "Why do you insult people you don't know?"
---

Think about it Sebastian. As I'm not alluding to any known person, it isn't really an 'insult', is it? At least, it isn't an insult in any direct or personal way.

What I'm doing is stating a strong opinion. It's called Freedom of Speech. If you don't like it, Steve's blog probably isn't the place for you!

[Friedemann]

Meathead,

your post sounds very much like a Rush Limbaugh rant. Wikipedia is maybe no place for people who believe the earth was created 6000 years ago. But wikipedia has been benchmarked against the encyclopedia britannica and has come out with flying colours. Badmouthing it is a convenient tactic employed by people who don't like what they read there.

I think the response here has been unanimous and the suggestions of my fellow posters were more than reasonable and constructive. The wiki-articles on RS and Pimsleur were by no means advertisements because they were fairly balanced and even included criticism. The requirements regarding correct citing are of course more than valid, vielen Dank Sebastian für Deine Erklärungen.

Let's all be thankful there are so many volunteers out there making wikipedia such a vibrant place.

Friedemann

[Friedemann]

I agree that the Live Mocha article does sound too much like a self written advertisement in my view. But then again, let's not be too shrill in criticising wiki. In my view the benefits of it greatly outweigh these imperfections. Remember, they rely on volunteers and it is difficult to ensure 100% compliance of the vast number of articles.

Steve, you always point out the importance of educating people. You must acknowledge tha wikipedia is a great tool for people to educate themselves, so don't let your personal disappointment get in the way,

Friedemann

[Friedemann]

Meathead,

if I were to say that 50% of Americans are self-righteous fools by your definition I havn't insulted anyone,

c'mon, give me a break!

[Ana]

I'm not in mood nor have the time to get involved in this discussion, so, I'm just going to suggest something.
I agree that it seems like an advertisement, but so what? A lot of stuff there is about advertising and promoting products and people.
I suggest you put a small stub article, as neutral as you can - and invite some LingQ members to complete it.

[Meathead Jones]

Friedemann said: "If I were to say that 50% of Americans are self-righteous fools by your definition I havn't insulted anyone."
---

Don't twist my words. If you said the above it would be:

a) your own opinion which (in America) you would be free to state.

b) you would not have insulted any specific or known individual.

But you're German, right? If so, I guess we shouldn't be too surprised if you have some problems with Freedom of Speech. (Germany is, after all, a country which PUTS PEOPLE IN JAIL just for holding crazy opinions about history!)

[John]

We need to face facts here.

Wikipedia deleted the article. They obviously had a reason for deleting it and that reason is NOT that they are just LingQ haters who would rather have articles other language learning programs. Steve, calling it "simply high handed arbitrary censorship" is a bit over the top, because your article, as said by many users here already, is quite biased and unbalanced. Although Wikipedia does contain numerous mistakes, I do not believe this was one of them. An administrator simply read the article, thought it was too must like a commercial for the product and deleted it. This is no reason to go on a Wikipedia hating rant just because your article did not get posted.

To Friedemann and Meathead, does it really matter? What you're arguing about is totally irrelevant.

-John

[Dr. Pepper]

The article you wrote Steve sounded way too commercial to me (and apparently to other readers as well). It makes sense that it was deleted. If the article were more balanced to begin with it may have made the cut.

[Friedemann]

John,

I think we had a rather civil discussion here before someone suggested the wiki administrator was a self-righteous fool. I think that was completely out of order even more so because Sebastian seems to be a wiki editor himself. Therefore I think my remark was more than relevant,

Friedemann

[Steve Kaufmann]

What I wrote was an accurate description of the site. Others were free to comment or edit. There was no justification in rejecting it, without comment of warning, given that Live Mocha and others also have a page at Wikipedia. It would not have been difficult for the censor to check up on other language sites listed at Wikipedia, and to contact me with suggestions.

Furthermore, I had just start editing the page. I was going to put footnotes and a table of contents,to make it look like Live Mocha's post but the whole thing was just zapped.

But most of all, why the censorship. They have unlimited data storage at Wikipedia. There are people interested to know what LingQ is. If their system works there will be people who come along and edit and comment. What is the harm? Why did it have to be "speed deleted" or whatever.

Sorry, I am with Meathead on this one.

[Sebastian]

@Steve: I can understand that you are frustrated but again:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, no platform for advertisement. The content of the encyclopedia should be relevant. The article you wrote didn't proof that there is relevance for this article. That's why the administrator deleted the page. It has nothing to do with censorship, it is just about the criteria of relevance.

To be honest, it is hard to defend the english wikipedia here, because there are many many articles about topics which have no relevance at all in my eyes. For example articles about participant at casting shows, relatives of famous people who never did anything exceptional in their lives or even an article about the dog of Vladimir Putin.

Did you write this article as an IP-address or did you register? If you registered before and the administrator didn't even give you a comment on your site with a justification why he deleted it, it would be really no appropriate behavior of him. If you are registered you can write an article on a subpage, which is not part of the actual wikipedia. That gives you as much time as you want to finish the article without the danger that it will be deleted quickly. After you finished the article you can move it into the wikipedia.

If you write an article, try to write it as neutral as possible. It is really the best if somebody else will write it for you. In addition the article needs a good structure.
For example: Introduction, Methodology, Content, History of development, Critic, References, External links. Try to search different reliable sources. Refer to your book (Postscript:The long road) when it is about the "History of development" for example. Was LingQ maybe mentioned or reviewed in any book or magazine or by any institution? If yes it creates relevance and can be used as source. As I mentioned above the number of persons who are registered at LingQ is a big point.

Maybe you register and contact the administrator again. I am sure he will restore the deleted article on a subpage of your wikipedia profile. Afterwards you could post the link here and the members of this blog could help you to edit the article on this page and find sources to proof relevance. Afterwards you can create the article again inside the Wikipedia.

[Meathead Jones]

Yep, we're together on this one Steve! But isn't it sad to see how some of your readers have a knee-jerk urge to support censorship?

It is also (sorry to say) highly typical of these political correctness folks that they always try to twist people's words in order to make untrue accusations. For example, I think it is 100% clear to anyone who can read that I was only calling THE UNKNOWN PERSON WHO DELETED THE ARTICLE a self-righteous fool. There is absolutely no reason to think that this person is among the readers here at this blog! Yet notice how this 'Friedemann' guy is now trying to twist things right around so as to accuse me of insulting your readers!

It's the sheer dishonesty of these people that I find most galling. :-(

[Friedemann]

Steve,

I think you should stop lamenting and do a better job of writing the article in the first place. The sample of opinions here was pretty clear cut and we are all lingq users. Write it offline first if you're afraid of loosing data. Or wait until lingq has made such an impact that someone else writes an article. Available storage is really no argument for diluting wiki's standards by having unnecessary advertisement there.

Again, kudos to wikipedia

[Steve Kaufmann]

Let me be clear. Having an article on Wikipedia is not going to do much to promote LingQ. Someone on a Forum at LingQ said that it would be a good idea to have en entry about LingQ at Wikipedia. I checked out how other language systems were presented at Wiki and set out to do the same.

So I registered at Wiki, figured out, or thought I did), their system. Before I had time to create the nice little table of contents, references etc, to make the entry look like the other entries, it was gone, zapped, with no questions asked or explanations provided.

No Friedemann I do not consider the sampling of opinions here to clear cut in any sense. These are just some opinions. If having an entry on LingQ is diluting the standards of Wiki, then I suggest that the dilution process start a long time ago.

I will not be rewriting my entry. If someone else wants to that is fine. I will not participate in a process where such arbitrary and inconsistent standards of censorship apply.

[Igor]

You crybaby. Come on, rewrite it.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Игор,
You write one in Macedonian, and just let me have good cry.

[Sebastian]

@Steve: It is no censorship. The Encyclopedia Britannica writes censorship is: "Act of changing or suppressing speech or writing that is considered subversive of the common good."

As for the dilution of standarts at the english wikipedia you are absolutely right.

@Meathead: The "THE UNKNOWN PERSON WHO DELETED THE ARTICLE" is mentioned with his nickname "Smashville" above, so it is an insult. It doesn't matter if this person is among the readers here or not.

[Meathead Jones]

@Sebastian:
I would like to be very clear about one thing: I certainly did NOT call you (or anyone else here) a fool! I resent the dishonesty of those who have tried to imply otherwise.

@Steve:
I think you're spot on. You can only boycott a forum which is subject to such crazy and arbitrary censorship!

In my opinion Wikipedia would still be fundamentally flawed even without the whole censorship issue.

It might not be fashionable to say so, but it seems to me that knowledge and expertise are not democratic entities. It seems to me that an article drafted by one genuine expert and then reviewed and edited by two or three other genuine experts will always be hugely better than an article put together piecemeal by a hundreds of kids, students, armchair experts, etc, etc.

[Steve Kaufmann]

You may be right in principle but I must say that I have often found Wiki to be a very handy and useful source of information, on a variety of subjects.

I just think they should be consistent. If Live Mocha is allowed to be there so should LingQ.

[Sebastian]

@Steve:

LingQ can be inside the wikipedia like Live Mocha. I quote from the article:

"Several national newspapers (including The New York Times)[2] have included articles about Livemocha's language tools since its early development stages.[3][4][5]
According to John Cook's Venture Blog, Livemocha was easily Seattle's biggest moving startup company in Autumn 2007.[6] According to CEO Shirish Nadkarni, Livemocha has over 2,000,000 users from over 200 countries as of March 2008. [7]"

That makes the relevance here. If you find such secondary sources for LingQ too, which proof relevance, there is no reason why it shouldn't be inside the wiki.

@Meathead: I never felt myself offended by you. I am reading this blog for a long time even if I didn't post here anything, so I know about your rough expression ;-)

[Sean]

I agree with Sebastian's last comments. I think the article suffered from not having any sources to prove its relevance. Had you included sources, I don't think it would have been a candidate for deletion, speedy or not. I think there is relevance in a LingQ article, but without this backup, it has speedy deletion written all over it. It should have come to no surprise that it was deleted, if you had read the criteria for a new article.

[Steve Kaufmann]

There are only so many things one can do. I thought I had figured out what Wiki wanted. I did not realize that my draft was in fact subject to deletion. I think that I deserved some communication, and that the panic rapid deletion was not an appropriate response. I will not be spending any more time on this.

[Steve Kaufmann]

Sebastian,

Live Mocha and Rosetta Stone pay for their media exposure. LingQ does not have the means to do that. We do not promote our stock on the stock market. We do have a loyal and growing following. In essence our status is no different from that of Live Mocha. I can also call everyone who ever signed up a "member".

[doviende]

I'm ambivalent about whether or not LingQ deserves a page of its own, but aside from that i'd like to make two comments.

Firstly, Steve, you tell us that there's a culture of "everything for free" that you don't agree with (and I think I understand your viewpoints about that, although i disagree with your reasoning). However, here you seem to be complaining about how you've been disallowed from a free service (wikipedia). I understand that you don't have the revenue to pay for tons of commercial advertising, nor have you done an IPO of your stock, but that doesn't entitle you to free service from wikipedia.

In an important sense, wikipedia is not completely free of cost. The cost is not monetary, but rather that each page must abide by their inclusion criteria. Yes, your site is similar in style to LiveMocha, but that does not automatically entitle you to an arbitrary entry.

Doesn't it seem that there's an inherent conflict of interest when the beneficiary of an article writes the article himself? There's a long-held belief on wikipedia that, for example, nobody should edit their own biographical page. By creating your own entry for LingQ, you are contravening the long-held social conventions of the wikipedia community.

These, and the reasons outlined by Sebastian above, are the reasons that your LingQ entry was different than the Live Mocha entry, despite LingQ and Live Mocha sharing much common ground in the business world.

[Steve Kaufmann]

No there is not conflict of interest in writing my own entry. There is just honesty. They know who I am, or can figure it out from my @thelinguist email address. I could as easily have someone else post. This distinction is sheer hypocrisy.

I am not complaining about being denied a free service at Wiki. They have no service to offer me. I am complaining about their arbitrary standards and lack of communication.

[Sean]

I think it's inherently impossible for wikipedia's editors to open up a dialogue. Thousands and thousands of other articles get deleted on a rotating basis. Kind of like, if LingQ grew a thousand fold in membership, you probably would be hard-pressed to open dialogue with anyone emailing you with complaints. With something this massive, there can be only so much procedure. I think the caliber of writing is what got it "speedy-deleted," and not some conspiracy to keep LingQ out of the public view.

I guess why some of us are baffled is because it's a bit unreasonable to dismiss wikipedia as a whole because you failed to align with its expectations, and didn't receive an official response, then to call it "censorship" and "favouritism."

I think the volunteer editors have better things to do than to hand pick favorites... honestly, few of them are probably even familiar with SLA on the web. You're not the special, no one submitting to the wiki system is special. There's no impetus to treat an article with preferential treatment.

I guess we're just beating a dead horse now. Moving on...

[John]

Steve, I believe a hard time admitting that you may be wrong. Throughout this whole post you have been ignoring and shutting down some very relevant and mostly correct criticisms about your article, all the while complaining about how you deserve the same rights as the other language learning companies. Your article was obviously flawed or they would not have deleted it and we would not be constructively criticizing it.

[Steve Kaufmann]

John,

You have every right to agree with certain people commenting on my blog, and to find their criticism correct, and to find me wrong, my article flawed and Wikipedia justified. No problem.

Just do not presume to tell me that "I have a hard time admitting that I am wrong." I also have the right to hold my opinion, whether it is shared by a majority of people or not.

Or is is beyond your comprehension that there can be different perspectives on an issue.

I consider that my treatment at Wikipedia was arbitrary. An individual made a decision, that could have been and should have been different in my opinion. My entry was a serious post.

I do not believe that all posts accepted at Wikipedia are by third party uninterested people.

[John]

Steve,

I agree that people have their own right to view anything from their own personal viewpoint, however I also believe people should admit their own flaws. I'm just saying that, if you have seriously considered any of the posts that have been made here, you might be seeing some flaws in your article. I believe the article as a whole was nicely written, but some parts made it sound like an advertisement, and that is the reason why so many of us have told you that Wikipedia was justified in their actions.

I did not tell you that you do have a hard time admitting that you're wrong, but at the moment I believe it has gone beyond the point of holding an opinion to pure stubbornness, so I think you are holding out beyond what is reasonable. Maybe you still believe your article was well-written enough to belong on Wikipedia, but the overwhelming majority of people here believe that it wasn't, and I think that right there is enough to show you that it probably wasn't. Now, you may be right that it is a completely fair submission in your eyes, however what matters on Wikipedia is the opinions of outsiders.

If you don't like that they deleted it, edit it and re-post it until it is satisfactory enough for them to allow it, it's as simple as that.

I'm not trying to insult you and I don't believe that "Or is it beyond your comprehension that there can be different perspectives on an issue" was exactly a fair response, but whatever, I suppose I've sounded a little rude more than once as well. I just think this issue has gone on long enough (I don't know why I keep coming back to post, I want to read what people say and then I feel the need to post).

[ray]

What if we reframed this in a language-learning context?

I wonder if there's any truth to the thought that newcomers to the Wikipedia community (of which I am definitely *not* a part), need to "learn to speak Wiki", so to speak.

I think many learners of English, during their initial forays into using English publicly, feel the same way you seem to in your reaction to the Wiki community; their initial failures to win the accolades and instant love, if not an understanding and empathetic ears, of the English speaking community feel like a personal kick-in-the-gut...... I think it's something from which many language learners never recover.

What's so different from your suggestions that language learners need to consume "more content in the language", and the advice being reflected back to you to go and study some of the other wiki commercial pages and learn to speak wiki?

To your credit, I too believe that many commercial entities have hired professional writers to write their pages--- this is probably one of the ways that semi-pro wiki hobbyists earn some $$ on the side. They know the rules, grammar and etiquette of
the Wiki culture.

Surely as a savvy language learner, you must have experienced lots of in-groups and cliques that require you to either learn to speak the jargon, or you get the social boot?

As the Japanese kotowaza goes: 七転び八起き... They may have knocked you over the first time, Steve, but I think you could get up and dust yourself off if you wanted to. Digital literacy is just as important as second or third language skills in the twenty-first century.

maybe you could give learning wiki語 a second try?

[chris/blindside70]

There arbitrary standards are everyone's considering that even the editors are just guys who are following rules and who don't do this for a living. I wouldn't call it censorship at all...

[Steve Kaufmann]

I think I will wait until we are more notable.

Even I am getting tired of the subject.

On the other hand, Chris, whether these editors do it for a living or not is not really relevant in my view. Just following the rules is also not a justification. There is always a judgment involved. Mostly I am mad that there was no communication.

I am not about to try again soon.

[Keith]

Is this a news article or what is this? I can't read Russian, but it looks like a news site and there is an article about LingQ.

LingQ: тестируем сервис интерактивного обучения английскому

[Friedemann]

Steve, I like what you are doing and what you have achieved, I really do. But I feel this long thread also tells a story about how you handle criticism. I am completely with John on this. The "Or is it beyond your comprehension that there can be different perspectives on an issue" was quite rude and completely unnecessary. At the same time you take no issue when Meathead calls someone a "self-righteous fool" just because he sides with you.

I can relate to a lot you are saying in your "critical thinking videos". You always advocate challenging the orthodoxy, but this message rings hollow, if you have a hard time dealing with criticism yourself.

Friedemann