[WikiEN-l] Re: Why is this an emergency?

Sun Sep 25 19:10:57 UTC 2005

Daniel P. B. Smith wrote

> Oldtimers: is the school struggle just par for the course, or does it 
> represent an emerging and deepening _lack_ of consensus on important 
> issues?

Hmmm ... from a cynic's point of view it is a fairly harmless outlet for 
negative vibes.

Look at it this way: how important is a school page _as reference 
information_?  Not that important, in that it will matter to few people who 
will have no other way of getting information.  (Information about a school 
might matter greatly to a parent, but WP can hardly expect to satisfy 
parental requirements on that.)

To take another example, also marginal, postcodes: WP might actually be 
helpful to those who want reference information about a specific postcode, 
and who didn't have another easy source.  And to be able to satisfy 
someone's immediate need, by giving the geography.

 In short, WP can't do a particularly good job as a reference on a 
particular school - education is more complex than (say) public transport. 
For an average school, the pages we can have typically do not add or detract 
much from the encyclopedia.  People who want to make a point of principle 
are looking at an unpromising issue there.

Charles 