[WikiEN-l] Re: Resolving content disputes

Wed Oct 29 02:32:55 UTC 2003

> From: James Duffy
> 
> Absolutely correct. Encyclopædic articles are not simply limited by
paper
> but by a range of other issues; readability, context, comprendability,
> communicative structure, layout, etc. Extraordinarily complex topics
need
> a
> lot of space; World Wars I and II, Vietnam War, intellectual concepts,
> major
> historical facts, etc but except in extreme cases we need to keep
> biographies readable, not turn them into theses simply because we
don't
> have
> a paper usgae limit. Saying 'lets get everything we can in because we
can'
> isn't encyclopædic, it is amateurish.

No, actually "encyclopedic", in its root meaning, is "including
everything".

> Encylopædias communicate themes,
> movements, contexts, relevances, not a 'fling the whole lot in'
approach.. 
> We
> have books to do that. An encyclopædia fulfils a different educational
> role.

A dead-tree encyclopedia fulfils a different educational role. Wikipedia
is not a dead-tree encyclopedia.

Your argument conflates trying to include everything in Wikipedia with
making impossibly long articles.

That is fallacious.

It is TRUE that people should avoid making super-long articles because
of readability, editability, etc.

It is FALSE that people should avoid adding tons of content because of
the problems of super-long articles.

There should be a limit on the length of entries; if not formally
enforced, then informally. 

A method of automagically linking associated articles in an intelligent
manner would be a helpful (though complicated to implement) tool.