On 10/3/05, Ryan Delaney <ryan.delaney(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Philip Sandifer wrote:
Which doesn't prove anything, I'll be the first to admit. But I think
this is an important thing we haven't been asking - what do readers
think.
It's an interesting point-counterpoint issue, because although Wikipedia
is about providing what the readers want, many readers aren't at all
concerned with the overall health of the project-- they are only
concerned with whether it helps with their homework, or Livejournal
debate or whatever.
I think most deletionists who are upset about people writing articles
about themselves get upset because after putting in all this work to
improve the project, someone coming in and writing an article about his
band is seen as an appropriation of the work of others. Wikipedia is
popular because of the work people put in to improve it, and that means
that anyone using it to do self-promotion is to be (rightfully) shunned.
Yes, the information about your garage band might be true, but that
doesn't mean it's okay for you to use Wikipedia as your own personal
vehicle to superstardom. We only want contributions from people who want
to improve the encyclopedia; not people who want to use it to advance
their own interests.
I'm not sure I agree with the statement that anyone using Wikipedia for
self-promotion should be shunned, but besides that I don't think that's the
reason most of this information gets added. If I didn't know it would be
deleted, I would have added information to Wikipedia about many of my
favorite indie bands. I wouldn't do this to promote them, but I'd do it for
the same reason I add information about anything else - I think it's
information that someone else might be interested in.
I really don't see how it promotes the band to write an article on [[Willy
on Wheels Garage Band]] anyway. No one is going to come across that article
unless they search for "Willy on Wheels Garage Band".
Perhaps this is even more clear with regard to the articles that I'd write
about more often if I knew that they wouldn't be deleted - software
programs. I'd love it if Wikipedia had an article on every single P2P
software program out there: big or small, good or bad, open source or
proprietary. I'm not doing it because I want to promote the software. In
fact, I think it's as important to have an NPOV article about software that
sucks so that I can read it and know not to bother downloading the crap.
Maybe that stuff doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. Maybe I should argue for
freshwikimeat.com <http://freshwikimeat.com>. But it has nothing to do with
self-promotion or any other type of promotion.
Now, the average reader doesn't care about this problem because they are
only interested in th quality of the articles they are
actually
searching for. Does that mean notability has nothing to do with quality?
No, I don't think so. But it doesn't mean it does, either.
- Ryan