[WikiEN-l] Google Knol: Move over Wikipedia?

[David Goodman]

Victory goes to the watchful and persistent. The rule about Canvassing
prohibits notifying people who are likely to share one's views,so the
AfD process can easily be manipulated by even small cabals. It applies
off-WP too, so , to avoid violating it, i will simply mention there
are multiple discussions at AFD, as well as WP:FICTION, WP:EPISODE,
and every other possibly relevant policy page, without explicitly
saying which way I  think the debate should go.

Obviously, if only the Farscape people turn out for Farscape, and
similarly others for their own favorites only, those who dislike all
comics pages will likely be in the majority. If people realise that WP
is made up of many small groups of hobbyists, then those who like one
type of specialised article may realise they should support others as
well.

Its not just comics. Similar attacks have been made on video games and
even conventional novels. Similar ones are made for detailed articles
about non-fiction also: hadith, verses of the bible, members of royal
families. None of us cares about every one of them. But it does not
take much effort to give support at AfD for things that look
support-worthy. If everyone who cares about the sort of detailed
content which is at the heart of WP were to show up there
occasionally, and join some discussions about things where they can be
a truly neutral party, those who want to delete all such content--and
it's much the same group for all of these sorts of articles--might
find they do not represent the consensus.

Or they still might. It's not my decision.

On 12/20/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu wrote:
> > The relevant guidelines are WP:FICT and WP:EPISODE which are frankly
> > being used
> > to remove a tremendous amount of content. The sensible thing to do for all of
> > this is to allow some minimum of inherited notability. But I doubt anyone is
> > going to go for that. Almost every tv show on my watchlist is being wiped out.
> > This isn't creating as much drama as the webcomics but it is far more
> > pervasive.  Many of the Stargate editors have left simply in disgust and I
> > suspect this is true for other series as well.
> The majority of us are not interested enough in these comics or TV
> series to become involved in the disputes.  We will happily refer to the
> articles to give us background when an allusion arises elsewhere, but we
> are not about to edit there when we have nothing to offer but our
> ignorance.  And spending my time there to engage in dramatic battle with
> others who are even more ignorant about the subject seems like an awful
> waste of that time.
>
> The silent majority (to use a familiar cliché) is content to let those
> interested in comics and TV to go ahead and write about their favorite
> subjects.  At least that means they are wasting somebody else's time.   ;-)
>
> In my moments of despair, I go so far as to speculate that we may be
> lacking good leadership.
>
> Ec
>
>
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.