[WikiEN-l] Eternal Ephemeral

Wed Nov 5 21:51:48 UTC 2003

> As evidence of the tremendous attractive power of trivia, there has 
> always been the persistent popularity of "The Guinness Book of
Records".

The counter-argument is, the Guiness Book of Records and the Funk &
Wagnalls Encyclopedia are two different things. Perhaps this is for a
reason, other than the fact that they are printed on paper.

Nobody is discounting the fact that trivia is popular. The question is,
does it detract from the perception of an encyclopedia as a serious
source of information? Does it threaten to move Wikipedia part of the
way down the path to being Everything2?

(Not to mention that 99% of all trivial subjects are not at all
interesting to the vast majority of people, like information about one
particular elementary school.)

Alex