On 9/23/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
So, should we be just as complete for schools, albums, songs, TV shows, and so on? Would that just be duplicating IMDB, etc., or would it be helping to make Wikipedia a one-stop resource for more in- depth info (including links where appropriate to other sites like IMDB) on everything in each of these fields?
Define "school". Under Michigan law, I was educated in a private school: the Vernon-Dunlap School. I can even cite sources that prove the existence of this school and that I went there; however, this particular "school" existed only because that's how the state of Michigan defined homeschooling: as a private school with a religious or philosophical objection to teacher certification. Should we have an article on it?
Define "album". Is a collection of a dozen songs by a teenage garage band, burned to CD and given to a bunch of their friends an album? Should we have an article on it? What if the band and album were mentioned in the "human interest" section of the local paper, making it verifiable?
Define "TV show". Is the weekly broadcast by the local high-school TV club on the school's five-watt transmitter a TV show?
Populated areas are generally easy to define, since governments have an interest in enumerating and tracking them. Most other things aren't.