[WikiEN-l] Re: Cruft

Sat Sep 10 16:25:08 UTC 2005

On Sep 10, 2005, at 12:04 PM, Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
>
> Such topic areas _are_ problems. The solution
> isn't clear.

I think the solution is perfectly clear. We fix the articles at a  
reasonable rate. We accept that referencing is hard, and that it's  
not going to be done as fast as any of us like. Those who are  
knowledgeable about the subject do what they can. But we're  
volunteers. And the job of going and finding references sucks. It's  
why I don't contribute to critical theory articles anymore. The push  
to reference has left it feeling too much like my job.

What do we really lose by having 100 mediocre-to-crappy articles on  
obscure Pokemon? I mean, yes, I lose sanity if I try to read them,  
but if they just sort of exist? The only thing I can think of that we  
might lose is some respect. Here's the thing, though - this project  
is four years old. We've built a pretty damn good encyclopedia in  
four years. But anyone who expects this project to be  
"done" (Whatever that means) or even close to "done" is being daft.  
Yes, Wikipedia is a cause celebre in the online world right now. But  
we can't let that push us into trying to sweep "cruft" under the  
carpet because we're kind of embarassed that we have more Pokemon  
articles than philosophy articles (Or whatever unfortunate statement  
that's actually true you want to put in here).

The answer is to just say, "Hey, glad you see the potential in the  
project. We agree, we're not there yet. Grab a keyboard and start  
helping if you like. Otherwise, well, we'll keep on it. Check back in  
another four years - we'll knock your socks off." And this is OK.  
We're not going anywhere. Even if we lose the cause celebre status  
and fall out of the top 100 on Alexa (Which I doubt we ever will),  
that's OK - it just means we work with a smaller base of contributors  
for a few years, and come back later with stories about how  
"Wikipedia, much maligned for having more information on Pokemon than  
philosophy, has finally come into its own."

And, honestly, I'd rather get it right in 2009 than decide in 2005  
that wrong is good enough.

-Snowspinner