[WikiEN-l] Why changing the deletion process is a bad idea

Wed Sep 14 19:01:02 UTC 2005

> Reliability and credibility have absolutely nothing to do with the
> selection of article topics.  R&C are a function of quality and
> quantity of references and citations used within the individual
> articles.  Quality of coverage gets us respect, but breadth of
> coverage gets us admiration for our unique ability in the world of
> encyclopedias to cover more than anyone else.  Any educator who finds
> a properly sourced and cited article in Wikipedia will respect it,
> however, educators who find the best written prose in the world in
> articles that lack cited references won't respect that article.
> 
> Wikipedia will never be the monolithic "respected source" that some
> seem to want it to be as long as it remains a wiki.  Individual
> articles will be respected sources, and bring respect to the project,
> and if we fork upward with a selection of our best cited and sourced
> articles, we'll have a monolithic "respected source" within the
> project, but the wiki-ness of the main prevents it from ever serving
> this role.  There are just too many rough edges in a wiki
> 
> I can write you a reliable and credible article on virtually any
> topic, but many of those topics will be excluded from Wikipedia
> because a consensus considers them to be "unencyclopedic" and I simply
> accept that as part of the project.
> 
> --
> Michael Turley
> User:Unfocused
True, that's exactly why I hate articles being deleted based on them
being fancruft.
Fancruft isn't a bad thing as long as an interesting info-filled
article can be written about it.

--Mgm