General Discussion • Re: Goanna article in EN Wikipedia has been nominated for deletion

Well, I would agree that it's not canvassing in the normal English definition, what I'm worried about is their policy here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Canvassing

This would likely be the definition they use rather than the plain English meaning. Like, posting this on the Pale Moon forums would presumably draw people who would be in favor of keeping the article... but those people are also the ones that would have the information needed to expand the article, cite sources that meet Wikipedia's standards, or make the best arguments for notability. Also, since Job did post it here before you or I had a chance to see the AfD on our own as a result of checking Wikipedia, others can now argue we wouldn't have seen it and were brought into the discussion when we otherwise would not have been or should not have been involved. The policy seems to imply it's one thing if we are looking at Wikipedia and notice ourselves to contribute to a discussion, but if anyone else is then told using an off-Wikipedia mechanism, it's a problem. They seem to be disallowing the spread of information about an article's status using off-Wikipedia mechanisms as a matter of policy.

And if they do choose to see it that way, the OP will be the one declared guilty and lose his Wikipedia account over this.

But yeah, that's how much of a set back this seems to be. We just went from worrying that the article might be deleted due to lack of information, to now worrying that the guy in our community who told us about the article being proposed for deletion will lose his head over there because he told us about it, and then not be able to contribute to Wikipedia on non-Goanna related things he's knowledgeable about because of it.

It's unfortunately not uncommon for a lot of websites nowadays to have these kind of "no drama please, snitches get stiches and you will be held accountable for what you say on other sites as it relates to us" sort of rules.

Let's face it, Wikipedia is too much of a litigious project for people like us to get involved... I think only people who can read and keep up with all of their policies can meaningfully contribute, because there are so many "gotchas" that are inconsistently enforced. Probably best to steer clear of them, I don't get the feeling they will ever see things our way.