[WikiEN-l] Joke

[Ben Yates]

I understand your reasoning, but the defoliation of the article -- er
... fills me with deep sadness?  It really was a nice, entertaining
article, with plenty of examples, even if all of them weren't the
platonic ideals of jokes.  Now it's dry and uninteresting, difficult
to skim, and gives no indication of the incredible volume of content
in the humor pages it links to.

There was a wikipedia guideline that I can't remember the name of --
something like "show, don't just tell": if you're writing an article
about trees it's good to have a photo of a tree; if you're writing
about music, it's good to have a sound clip.  This is the same
principle.  Should we remove all the photos at [[Tree]] because
they're not totally reprentative of all trees?  It seems like the
solution for [[Joke]] is to get an expert review, not to bulldoze a
shabby but vibrant public space.

On 7/11/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joke
>
> I removed the jokes.  Mikka reverted.  My reasoning:
> * no reliable sources for these being considered representative of the
> classes of joke discussed
> * this is about the concept of the joke, it is not [[List of jokes]]
> (and most especially not [[List of randomly selected and generally
> abysmal jokes]])
> * several are gratuitously offensive.  It should be possible to read
> the article on joke, be told that racist jokes exist, but not be
> subjected to them unless you visit a separate article
> * WP:NOT a joke book
> * cruft, cruft, cruft and more cruft.  Most are drive-bys.
>
> Guy (JzG)
> --
> http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG
>
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-- 
Ben Yates
Wikipedia blog - http://wikip.blogspot.com