[WikiEN-l] The harmful "Main article fixation" phenomenon

Mon May 30 09:59:15 UTC 2005

Andries Krugers Dagneaux wrote

> I hope that editors who read this will help to distract attention of
> other editors from the main articles to the ancillary articles to enable
> the overall better quality of Wikipedia.

I definitely agree with the main point.  The basic task of Wikipedia at 
present seems to be to extend its coverage, of good average articles, to the 
point where it really can be called 'comprehensive'.  There are still many 
topics, for example, taught at undergraduate level at universities, that 
have scanty or no explanation.  I have noticed, to my pleasure, that short 
articles in the humanities (where I have no particular expertise) that I 
have contributed to, do tend to be upgraded, on a time scale of six months 
or so.  Still, we need much more.

On the specific matters of people nit-picking in main articles, and trying 
to push their points of view, that is to some extent just human nature (or 
at least Wikipedian nature).  Main articles afford a measure of recognition 
to authors, too.  With the expansion of WP, there is less 
recognition-per-person, I think.  Therefore I don't such 'fixation' can 
easily be removed.

Charles 