[WikiEN-l] Potential Wikipedian growing pains

Wed Sep 21 18:49:29 UTC 2005

Alphax wrote:

>David Gerard wrote:
>  
>
>>Andrew Lih wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>I used to tell folks writing for wiki was easy, and the inclusiveness
>>>of it has to do with not being like a database or data entry system.
>>>That has changed with templating now being extensively used around the
>>>Wikimedia projects.
>>>      
>>>
>>Nowadays I pretty much tell new contributors "just write a few
>>paragraphs and INCLUDE REFERENCES and don't worry about the fancy
>>markup for now. Just INCLUDE THE REFERENCES and people will know it's
>>a real article about a real thing."
>>    
>>
>I'm starting to think that maybe we should just leave everything in that
>isn't immediately speediable, let things be merged and redirected at the
>will of the people, and finally let Wikipedia 1.0 sort it all out.
>
>(The other day, when the wiki went slow, someone said suggested
>disabling editing, serving Wikipedia from one of the static database
>dumps, and declaring Wikipedia as being version 1.0 ;) )
>
Honestly, I really am an inclusionist. :-)
I have never believed that "notability" alone should be a significant 
criterion for deletion.

Putting this kind of problem off onto the backs of those who will be 
editing 1.0 seems like avoiding responsibility.  It will be even harder 
for them because time will have left them even further removed from the 
original contributor, who may be the only one capable of answering the 
questions.  If the wiki is having a slow day I see that as a temporary 
situation which should have no bearing on editorial policy.

Clear objective standards are important to credibility, and what is 
needed to achieve those standards should also be very clear.  
Verifiability can be clearly defined; notability cannot.

Ec