[WikiEN-l] dueling templates

[David Goodman]

I agree with your interpretation, and of course the mere question of
how articles should be organised does not provide any basis whatever
for the removal of any  the content from these sections.  The
reorganization of hundreds of articles is not something to be done
overnight, and the burden of those removing such section have the
burden of moving the material elsewhere. In fact, I personally have
eliminated several such sections, doing just that, as most of the
biographical material accumulated there by lazy editors fitted much
better in the main portion--and I did delete one or two items which
never should have been added.

The removal of unencyclopedic content does not depend where in the
article it is, but as you say, upon its function; Even your first
example might well have a section about how the example of certain
well-known entertainment figures both indicated and led to the further
acceptances of lesbians in the United States.  Arguably it is more
important there than in the biography--the social change is far more
generally important than a person's individual career. To suggest
otherwise is a continuation of WP's preoccupation with the basically
trivial in a more fundamental sense.  I assume you, like me, want a WP
that deals fully with significant social issues, not just television
personalities..

The current bitter disagreements at various places in WP are another
example of how well-meaning and sensible people intending to make good
and necessary changes in WP are at the mercy of those who
over-enthusiastically the same good principles, and also those who
misapply them altogether to situations for which they never were
intended.


On 9/10/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 9/10/07, David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > Brock, I've commented from time to time that the intent of at least
> > some of the people who are trying to delete trivia sections and
> > popular culture sections is to remove material on the significance of
> > themes and structure because of their personal view that such
> > information can never possibly be encyclopedic. A good deal of the
> > material in so called trivia sections is of this nature. People have
> > said I'm over-generalizing, that nobody wants to remove it all.
> >
> > Many trivia section contain some junk as well, but to say that
> > everything in every one of them is worthless--well, I think you have
> > just confirmed what I've been saying. You do want to remove it all.
> >
> > Personally, I'm there to write an encyclopedia for general use, not
> > just a collection of information for my own private purpose. WP:OWN
> > usually means articles, but you think you own wikipedia.  If you want
> > your own wiki, limited to what you wish to have in an encyclopedia,
> > branch WP, and work at a project where you can safely call yourself
> > "we".
>
>
> I can't pretend to speak for Brock, but as someone who opposes the existence
> of trivia sections, I think a miscommunication has taken place. Perhaps
> Brock and a few others think otherwise, but if you ask me, the problem is
> usually not the content; it is how the content is organised. I do not like
> trivia sections, but I never remove them wholesale unless all the
> information in them is clutter (should, say, [[lesbian]] have a trivia
> bullet-point along the lines of "character Y in sitcom X was a closeted
> lesbian"? That information may be useful in [[sitcom X]], but not in
> [[lesbian]]).
>
> The usefulness of information depends almost as much on its context,
> location and presentation as it does on the information itself. "George W.
> Bush is the President of the United States" is almost always a useful thing
> to know, but it is more useful in articles like [[United States]] than
> articles like [[gecko]]. Trivia sections are a very poor way of presenting
> information, and almost always lead to bad organisation of our information.
>
> Eradicating trivia sections is not an end in itself; it is a means to better
> presenting and contextualising our information. Wholesale removal of the
> content in trivia sections defeats this latter end; removal of clutter and
> moving around potentially useful information is what serves the end we have
> in mind.
>
> Johnleemk
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>


-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.