[WikiEN-l] Topic warriors

Tue Sep 20 11:09:00 UTC 2005

Somewhat related to this, I have to say I question the value of quite a
few of the portals that have been created.  I imagined that portals were
supposed to be pretty high level and aimed at general readers, but a lot
now seem to be aimed mainly at fans of games and TV programs, or are so
narrow that I can't see what a portal provides that an article doesn't. 
Examples of the former are portals for Doctor Who, Final Fantasy, James
Bond, Oz, Stargate, the Simpsons and Warcraft, while for the latter
there's Ancient Germanic culture, Eastern Christianity, Scientific Method,
Utah and Bucharest.

Personally I think portals as fan areas such as the ones above are a bad
idea.  Just wondered what anyone else though?

WT

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Daniel P. B. Smith [mailto:dpbsmith at verizon.net]
> Sent: 16 September 2005 11:09 AM
> To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] Topic warriors
>
>
> We all know about "POV warriors." I'm fortunate or wimpy enough not
> to have been involved in articles with serious long-standing POV
> wars, but my impression is that _for the most part_ these things seem
> to stay under reasonable control.
>
> On the other hand, I think we are developing "topic warriors" who
> feel that a specific subject area deserves very detailed coverage,
> systematically watch VfD for any cases where articles on their pet
> topic are nominated for deletion, and oppose deletion of _any_
> article on their topic on principle, regardless of the quality of the
> article.
>
> Unlike POV, a relatively small number of topic warriors CAN
> effectively achieve their goal. (And, of course, they are assisted by
> Wikipedians who do _not_ accept the premise that "Wikipedia is not an
> indiscriminate collection of information.")
>
> NOTE NOTE NOTE ---> topic wars are FAR, FAR less damaging to
> Wikipedia and FAR less of a concern than POV wars.
>
> Some Wikipedians undoubtedly feel that topic wars do not damage
> Wikipedia at all. My feeling is that they do,  because they
> deliberately _create_ systemic bias, and  create an area in which the
> average quality of the articles  is lower than the rest of Wikipedia.
>
> They certainly damage the Wikipedia community by factionalizing it,
> creating an "us versus them" mentality, and, in some cases, publicly
> gloating over their "success."
>
>
> --
> Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
> "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
> Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
> Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/