Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
From: Mark Pellegrini mapellegrini@comcast.net
I'm more than a little suprised that no one is angry about the fact that companies admit to subtle PR-pushing on Wikipedia. ("planting of viral information in entries, modification of entries to point to new promotional sites or 'leaks' embedded in entries to test diffusion of information.") Where's the outrage? Why aren't people upset about this?
I personally think that the co-opting of Wikipedia for commercial and promotional purposes is a real danger to Wikipedia.
I am especially concerned about the articles we get about movies, software, games, concert tours, reality TV shows, etc. that are _about to_ be released within the next couple of months, always with the assertion that they are certain to be very notable.
I guess I don't see the where the danger part comes in. It seems more like a self-correcting phenomenon - if the thing becomes real, then cool, we have a writeup in progress already; if it fizzles, people will lose interest in writing about it very quickly. If it fizzles spectacularly, that itself is notable, and worth an article that goes into all the embarassing details.
If you really wanted to monitor and be able to VfD things after they've proven to be obscure duds, just make a new category of "to be released" things, perhaps subcatted by year, then review the following year.
Stan