[WikiEN-l] Bad And Wrong Policy/Procedure/Guideline Hitlist

Tue Nov 7 17:29:29 UTC 2006

Phil Sandifer wrote:
> I think this is a big misconception, though an understandable one.  
> Wikipedia is a general encyclopedia of limitless depth. Due to that,  
> it covers material that would be too esoteric for a paper general  
> collection. But it's approach to all of its topics is that of a  
> general encyclopedia. So even when we have an article on, say,  
> Vermont State Highway 26, the approach is that of a general  
> encyclopedia, not a specialist one. This is a VITAL distinction in  
> terms of understanding what the content of an article should be.

Well, yeah, all of the articles are subject to the same policies,
guidelines, style guides, etc.. It's actually one of my major annoyances
when subgroups of articles try to come up with their own special
standards to live by. When I talk of "compendium of specialist
encyclopedias" I'm thinking just of what subjects actually get articles,
not the form those articles take.

> WikiProjects, on the other hand, are social phenomena among editors  
> who want to work on particular areas - equivalent, say, to those  
> editors of an encyclopedia assigned to manage the physical sciences.

But the end result of those associations are that those particular areas
of knowledge often wind up with uniform and tightly integrated coverage,
with elaborate category structures and templates binding them together.
You could take many of those subject groupings out of Wikipedia and have
them stand alone as an "Encyclopedia of Pokemon" or whatever with only
modest modifications.

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