On 15/09/05, Alphax <alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:
It's about how much can be written on the subject
of the article.
Seriously, how much needs to be written about a minor (or even
major) character in a movie, if they are known for nothing outside
of that movie, and the portrayal of the character in the movie was
unremarkable?
Does it matter?
Yes. People look at the articles and say "oh, they've only got 2 lines
on such and such, and they want me to tell them about it!? What sort of
encyclopedia is this?" That is the problem with articles which will
never be (and in some cases, /can never be/) anything more than stubs.
I don't know if Raul was joking when he said "every article is
potentially a feature", but I wouldn't disagree with that.
Anyway, you contradict yourself: if someone looks up a topic and
thinks "they've only got 2 lines on such and such", that implies that
it must be possible for the article to be longer. The alternative is
that it must be stating everything that is known on the subject, in
which case no-one would think the above.
So far, the only argument advanced to say that it
does is that such
entries damage Wikipedia's credibility.
It does. The more stubs, the more likely people are to miss the good
quality stuff.
That doesn't make sense: people come and read what they need/want to.
With Wikipedia now the most popular reference
website in the world,
I'd say that Wikipedia no longer has any credibility issues.
Oh, I agree. Wikipedia is still only as credible as the rest of the
internet - that is, any idiot could have written it.
We do encourage the citing of sources - and reliable ones, at that.
There may still be some whiney critics around,
but no-one is
listening to them, clearly!
You call librarians and educators "whiney critics whom no-one listens to"?
Eh? Which "librarians and educators" are critics?
Dan