[Wikipedia-l] A quick thought about 1.0

Wed Dec 17 19:56:16 UTC 2003

Jimmy-
> Cunc has argued, correctly I think, that the idea of 1.0 may be
> causing people to delete things that really need not be deleted.  For
> this reason, he thinks it best to pursue 1.0 under a non-Wikipedia
> brand name, possibly Nupedia.

I think that's a very bad idea, for the reasons I have given here:

http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/8910
http://article.gmane.org/gmane.science.linguistics.wikipedia.english/8916

I haven't seen Cunctator's argument and for now I don't buy it.  
Individuals don't delete articles on Wikipedia, there has to be community  
consensus. The only way that there would be consensus for increased  
deletion is if it served some useful purpose, for example, "Let's delete  
this because it can never be in a print edition." For filtering purposes,  
however, it would be very simple to have a [[Category:Print]] tag (or  
[[Edition=Print]] with a more complex scheme).

You may have fueled some of the tendencies Cunc describes by giving a  
rather vague idea of the "how" for Wikipedia 1.0 but giving more specific  
ideas about the "why", "what" and "when". So some people may feel that the  
very idea of 1.0 gives them license to delete more. If that is the case,  
we need a better plan. I for one would love to keep everything that is  
encyclopedia-related part of Wikipedia. I think Wikipedia's standards for  
inclusion are good the way they are, but there are legitimate  
considerations for a print edition.

Regards,

Erik