[WikiEN-l] Re: Becoming more encyclopedia-like: 1: Encephalon's comments

Sat Oct 1 14:24:19 UTC 2005

> From: Alphax <alphasigmax at gmail.com>
> Inclusionists and Deletionists are playing what they think is a  
> zero-sum
> game. It's WORSE than that: the mere presence of their mindless  
> ranting
> is actually HURTING Wikipedia. By arguing over what should be
> kept/deleted, we lose information. We lose readers. We lose editors.
>
> The solution:
>
> Become more encylopedia-like.
>
> For just about every value of X, where the number of total X is
> sufficiently large, we can make more logical and more comprehensive
> articles by MERGING the bits of information we have (which on their  
> own,
> are perma-stubs) into more comprehensive articles on the topic.
>
> In doing so, we play a BETTER than zero-sum game. We build articles  
> that
> a "traditional" encyclopedia would be jealous of. We HELP Wikipedia by
> having articles that both retain information and look professional.

I'd like to call attention to some remarks by Encephalon. I hesitate  
to do this because of the context that they're in, and I hope he/she  
will work them up into a standalone essay, but nevertheless. Take a  
look in

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/ 
Lingnan_Primary_School

near the bottom, the portion that begins:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. That is the very first thing you read  
under Key Policies (WP:RULES), the main page of the essential rules  
that govern this encyclopedia. It is the very first thing that you  
read in the fundamental five pillars (WP:5P). The fundamental  
requirements of encyclopedia writing are enshrined in the basic,  
fundamental tenets of its policies. WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV are each  
and all fundamental rules that we may not ignore as we please...

...and the subsequent discussion, and this _very interesting_ comment:

"I am using the criteria all of us should use: the principles central  
to writing encyclopedic articles on WP. Pages which violate those  
policies should be removed, whether they've been on WP for 3 weeks or  
3 years, whether they pertain to the United States or to sub-Saharan  
Africa. Likewise, pages that are written in accordance with such  
principles should be kept, no matter how obscure or unknown to WPns  
at large."

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/