[WikiEN-l] Limits to fiction

Sun Jan 19 21:18:00 UTC 2003

In part in response to recent edit disputes, I have suggested a new  
policy:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ACheck_your_fiction

(complementing "Check your facts"). It appears to me that we have not  
really defined what types of fiction are OK on Wikipedia, inviting all  
sorts of micronation-fantasies, online RPGs, fan fiction and so on. In the  
above policy, I merely recommend not adding fiction that is limited to an  
insignificant number of participants. While the "fact" that this is  
fiction is to some extent verifiable, the small involvement of others  
makes it hard to expand and improve these entries, and they have little  
value for us as an encyclopedia.

I recall a discussion where someone suggested that we shouldn't have  
articles about every "anti"-movement, and that there would probably be  
hits for "anti-banana", too. I checked, and there are. The Anti Banana  
Society:
        http://antibanana.8m.com/
A typical teenager nonsense page, much like many micronations. I doubt  
anyone would want an article about this one.

Instead of just *recommending* that we do not add fiction shared only  
among a small number of participants, I suggest that we prohibit it  
entirely or at least restrict it to single articles (e.g. "Star Wars fan  
fiction"). This would allow us to quickly resolve many disputes caused by  
people bent on adding fringe fictional material to Wikipedia.

There seem to be plenty of people who have lost their ability to properly  
distinguish fantasy from reality (or never had it in the first place, or  
are still too young to be expected to have it) and we should define a  
clear policy on how to deal with these people and their writings.  
Wikipedia is not Everything2.

My apologies if this particular horse has already been mutilated.

Regards,

Erik