On Tue, May 15, 2012 at 3:32 PM, Laura Hale <laura(a)fanhistory.com> wrote:
Been there. Done that. It isn't only women's topics. Because Justin
Bieber is unpopular and actively disliked by some people, (Though I guess
you could argue this example relates to a topic of interest to many young
girls) there was an attempt to merge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber_on_Twitter in
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Bieber , with
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Justin_Bieber#Merger_proposal making it
clear the reason is "I don't like this." The article had about 100
sources
around the time the article was nominated for merge. Lady Gaga, the most
followed person on Twitter and woo hoo female to boot! has had other people
ask why the article isn't deleted. See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Lady_Gaga_on_Twitter#Request_for_deletion….
I have another topic I wrote on where the regional women's stuff should
be generic to all women playing the sport or to the region. If neither
article currently exist, [[WP:SOFIXIT]] by creating the new and relevant
articles.
Information is power and what is on Wikipedia has the potential to shape
greater understanding around issues. Thus, a battle for what should and
should not be there.
Wow, YMMV, but I think it's really odd to have whole long articles devoted
to a Twitter account. What is and isn't broken out from "main topic"
articles is often controversial, whether criticism sections or detailed
information on specifically consequential periods, but an article on a
Twitter account is an outlier in my reading experience.
One of the arguments on the talk page for Fanny Imlay was that the sources
cited included information about her only incidentally in the course of
covering other people, as opposed to being primarily about her (presumably
with the exception of the biography). I don't know enough about the subject
or the sources to know if this is the case, but it's an argument that might
apply to "Justin Bieber on Twitter." The articles discussing his Twitter
usage are really about Justin Bieber and his behavior, not his Twitter
account. See for example[1], a short mention in Ashton Kutcher's bio about
his Twitter use. Kutcher is also among the most prominent users of that
service in its history, but there is no article devoted to it. Rather than
seeing the merge proposal as an example of "I don't like it," I think the
fact that it failed demonstrates the power of a gigantic fanbase to distort
normal practice on a wiki.
~Nathan
[1]:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashton_Kutcher#Twitter_presence