Wikipedia:Canvassing (via) Apparently it’s considered bad form to tell people about debates occurring on Wikipedia (such as votes for deletion). Looks like a policy designed to discourage the participation of subject experts in favour of the participation of Wikipedia process gnomes.
Sign in with 
OpenID
Right -- but on many other issues, it probably prevents wikipedia from becoming overrun by single-issue 'protesters'. when stuff like this happens -- http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9474.shtml -- it's easy to see how 'encouraging participation' could be seen as negative.
David Reese - 16th June 2008 14:42 - #
The last thing you want to do is encourage a hoard of otherwise-uninterested zealots to swarm a page.
Timothy - 16th June 2008 16:06 - #
It's a little more tolerable when they stick around and interact. I'm always amused when activists put out a Wikipedia "call to action" - it always, but always, ends up recruiting more new good Wikipedians who put their personal points of view to one side and get on with writing an encyclopedia. And that includes Electronic Intifada and CAMERA.
David Gerard - 16th June 2008 21:50 - #
Though I understand the desire to avoid a swarm of otherwise-uninterested people, what a swarm of people who are interested? Just because a person doesn't spend all their time editing wikipedia doesn't mean that they don't have something valuable to say about a particular issue.
The issue is more that one shouldn't simply spread word to one's friends saying "article foo is up for deletion, please swarm to Articles for Deletion/Foo and vote for it to be kept" rather than that one should not inform others about a debate.
If one reads the guideline carefully, one will find that it says nothing whatsoever about subject-matter experts or that one should say nothing whatsoever about the debate, but instead a relatively obvious idea: that people shouldn't try to game the system.
In particular, subject-matter experts are particularly welcome on Wikipedia, though they are subject to exactly the same guidelines as all normal users.
Nihiltres - 18th June 2008 18:59 - #