The Economist has an article about the struggle within Wikipedia between inclusionists and deletionists:
Wikipedia is facing an identity crisis as it is torn between two alternative futures. It can either strive to encompass every aspect of human knowledge, no matter how trivial; or it can adopt a more stringent editorial policy and ban articles on trivial subjects, in the hope that this will enhance its reputation as a trustworthy and credible reference source. These two conflicting visions are at the heart of a bitter struggle inside Wikipedia between “inclusionists”, who believe that applying strict editorial criteria will dampen contributors’ enthusiasm for the project, and “deletionists” who argue that Wikipedia should be more cautious and selective about its entries.
I come down firmly on the side of the inclusionists. Why shouldn’t every film, every TV programme episode, every book, every minor band, every small-circulation magazine, every pokemon character, every restaurant, fish-and-chip shop or takeaway, every open source software project, etc have an article about it? For every one of these articles, most people won’t be interested in it, but that’s not a problem because they won’t be searching for it in the first place. But for people who are interesting in the subject, the article will be relevant and useful.
The Internet isn’t paper; there’s no need for limitations on what can go in articles.
Consider the fictional characters of Pokémon, the Japanese game franchise with a huge global following, for example. Almost 500 of them have biographies on the English-language version of Wikipedia (the largest edition, with over 2m entries), with a level of detail that many real characters would envy. But search for biographies of the leaders of the Solidarity movement in Poland, and you would find no more than a dozen—and they are rather poorly edited.
If lots of entries on Pokémon are deleted, it’s not as if this will somehow magically create new articles on Solidarity. In fact, if anything the opposite is true, because people might originally come to the encyclopedia via a search on a Pokémon-related subject, and later edit articles on other subjects.
To measure a subject’s worthiness for inclusion (or “notability”, in the jargon of Wikipedians), all kinds of rules have been devised. These rules are used to devise official policies on particular subjects, such as the notability of pornographic stars (a Playboy appearance earns you a Wikipedia mention; starring in a low-budget movie does not)
Why not have an article on anyone who’s played a part in any movie (pornographic or otherwise)?
Mr Lih and other inclusionists worry that [the prospect of an article being deleted] deters people from contributing to Wikipedia, and that the welcoming environment of Wikipedia’s early days is giving way to hostility and infighting.
I know for a fact that I’ve been deterred from contributing to Wikipedia after articles I’d created or worked on were deleted. That was the original impulse that drove me to creating Includipedia.
(via Slashdot)
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