[WikiEN-l] GNAA Deleted!

Wed Nov 29 02:07:52 UTC 2006

This is a discussion about wikipedia, however, and not wikinews.
There are some subjects that an encyclopedia can not and should not
touch because there is simply no real research on the subjects yet.

Some number of years from now we'll know if the GNAA was actually
notable from the serious research done on the subject. This same
research, if it exists, will enable us to write a proper article on
the subject.

There are millions of subjects which do have solid backing research
for us to write about so surely there can be no argument that we'll
run out of things to do unless we abandon verifyability... And
likewise there are plenty of great sources for rumor and opinion on
the internet which aren't wikipedia, so if we do not write about X our
readers will not be starved for information about X. (And if they are,
that's a sign that you're missing a great oppurtunity to open your
own, possibily wiki based, site on the matter)

Wikipedia is not and should not be an attempt to replace the entire
internet. We already have the entire internet and with no solid
demands on verifilibility, neutrality, or copyright non-encoumberance
we often find its utility limited... And without criteria for
inclusion, we often do find it hard to find the good content on the
internet amid a sea of spam and garbage... Google search has a brilant
multibillion dollar company behind it trying to make sure its search
results are good, and now adays they often fail.

Although some of our articles to use print sources that don't exist on
the internet.. It's far more common that our articles entirely contain
material which could be found elsewhere on the internet. Why is it
that pepople still find Wikipedia useful then?  Because of all the
things Wikipedia is not, at lest as much as because of all the things
Wikipedia is.

On 11/28/06, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 11/28/06, Tony Jacobs <gtjacobs at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> > What definition of "notable" are you using?  The only definition of that
> > word that matters at Wikipedia is: "A topic is notable if it has been the
> > subject of multiple, non-trivial published works whose sources are
> > independent of the subject itself."  That's not true of GNAA, ergo they're
> > not "notable", which simply means that it's impossible to write a properly
> > verifiable article about them.  We don't want to keep an unverfiable
> > article
> > around, no matter how much "consensus" may hoot and holler for it, so we
> > delete it.
> >
> > People who want to know about GNAA can still look them up at ED, which has
> > no problem covering topics that we eschew.
> >
>
> The problem with this trend is that it relegates certain aspects of internet
> culture which tend not to get press coverage into the dustbin.
>
> As much as I hate GNAA and everyone involved in it, it IS notable among the
> realm of internet troll activities.
>
> If we have the (harmless, real, but equally badly documented)
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alt.fan.warlord entry....
>
>
> --
> -george william herbert
> george.herbert at gmail.com
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