[WikiEN-l] What Readers Say on Inclusion

Sat Oct 22 22:13:22 UTC 2005

On 10/22/05, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 10/22/05, Anthony DiPierro <wikispam at inbox.org> wrote:
> > 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> <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
> > _______________________________________________
>
> It may not be effective promotion, but it's about the intent, not the
> effect. Besides, any such article about a regular unremarkable band is
> eating server resources. One wouldn't be a problem, but if you allow
> one why not the other and soon we've got a whole bunch of them.
> Keeping such bands would set a bad precedent.
>
> --Mgm

 I think you're wrong about the intent of most contributors, though. And if
keeping one article on an unremarkable band would set a precedent, and bring
more articles on bands, I see that as a good precedent, not a bad one.

One wouldn't be a problem, and neither would ten thousand. We've got
thousands of articles on unremarkable cities, and I don't see a problem with
that either.
 Anthony