[WikiEN-l] What Readers Say on Inclusion

Sat Oct 22 23:30:02 UTC 2005

MacGyverMagic/Mgm wrote:

>On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
>  
>
>> I'm not sure I agree with the statement that anyone using Wikipedia for
>>self-promotion should be shunned, but besides that I don't think that's the
>>reason most of this information gets added. If I didn't know it would be
>>deleted, I would have added information to Wikipedia about many of my
>>favorite indie bands. I wouldn't do this to promote them, but I'd do it for
>>the same reason I add information about anything else - I think it's
>>information that someone else might be interested in.
>> I really don't see how it promotes the band to write an article on [[Willy
>>on Wheels Garage Band]] anyway. No one is going to come across that article
>>unless they search for "Willy on Wheels Garage Band".
>> Perhaps this is even more clear with regard to the articles that I'd write
>>about more often if I knew that they wouldn't be deleted - software
>>programs. I'd love it if Wikipedia had an article on every single P2P
>>software program out there: big or small, good or bad, open source or
>>proprietary. I'm not doing it because I want to promote the software. In
>>fact, I think it's as important to have an NPOV article about software that
>>sucks so that I can read it and know not to bother downloading the crap.
>>Maybe that stuff doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Maybe I should argue for
>>freshwikimeat.com <http://freshwikimeat.com>. But it has nothing to do with
>>self-promotion or any other type of promotion.
>>
>It may not be effective promotion, but it's about the intent, not the
>effect. Besides, any such article about a regular unremarkable band is
>eating server resources. One wouldn't be a problem, but if you allow
>one why not the other and soon we've got a whole bunch of them.
>Keeping such bands would set a bad precedent.
>
The server space argument is not convincing when you consider that 
probably far more server space is used trying to get rid of one than in 
maintaining a useless stub in an out-of-the-way corner.  In large 
computer programmes, I'm sure that many random code bits are kept 
because it is not a cost effective way of employing developer time to be 
hunting them all down.

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