Monday, July 2, 2007

Wikipedia - Closed for business ?? The lame notability policy.

Something I touched upon here really gets my goat - Wikipedia's notability policy.


I used to find wikipedia fascinating, in that it was what an encyclopedia should be - an ever expanding treasure trove of information.

Wikipedia used to be "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit".

It is now more appropriately "the encyclopedia that anyone can edit - but your contributions will most likely be speedily deleted".

Nowadays, many of the best articles have been deleted due to notability, and the site is creating a new breed of "content Nazis" with little better to do than exercise their collective destructive rights.

And this notability policy is flawed.

I fear that by this policy of only notable articles being included, then wikipedia simply becomes an encyclopedia of popular culture - or worse still, the encyclopedia which only covers what everyone already knows.

Wikipedia is always going to be full of junk. Any nerd can argue that Jabba the Hutt is notable, therefore Jabba the Hutt's wife, who appears in half a second of Episode I of Star Wars deserves an article of their own, and there will always be thousands of American geeks in support of this notability case. While an Australian Football club that has existed - in the real world - with over 100 years of history and probably seen thousands of players and spectators pass in and out of its doors deserves a speedy delete on the completely subjective grounds of "notability". And an amateur gridiron or soccer club which has lasted for all but a couple of years in Australia is kept - because they are more supposedly notable sports ?????

Who is wikipedia really for anyway ?? Is it the people's encyclopedia, or some sort of

It is the content consumers that have donated both their time and money to continue to make wikipedia a success. Are they merely throwing their money and time down the toilet ?

Do we really have to draw the line ?

I mean if there can't it just be tagged and edited by one of the every growing community of free knowledge supporters ?

I still use wikipedia, but the days of the occasional contribution are well and truly over for me. I have moved on.

RIP Wikipedia - we knew you well.

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