Daniel P. B. Smith wrote:
I believe the "cruft" label, which I don't like and try to avoid using myself, is shorthand for "topic area in which low-quality articles are being created faster than they are being improved."
Such topic areas _are_ problems. The solution isn't clear.
Yeah, such areas are a problem, but I believe this doesn't really apply to a lot of the "cruft". Often it's just an easy starting point for newbies... it's much easier to write about a Harry Potter character than about most other topics, because the available knowledge about Harry Potter characters is very small and manageable. If it's easy to write the article, it's easy to improve it too.
But you mentioned a list of bipolar people. Yes, lists are deceiving to many editors: it looks easy to add to a list (Hey, I don't even have to write full sentences!), but if the list is to be useful, it has to have well-defined criteria for what can be included and what not, and suddenly things get much trickier.
Chl