On 2/26/07, Robth robth1@gmail.com wrote:
The above is an argument for some form of reliable sources guideline, obviously, and not a notability guideline. The latter I'm more up in the air on; in the long run, I see no real need for one, but in the short run there is something to be said for limiting our size sheerly for reasons of manageability (although realistically we crossed the borders of where we had any really effective quality control long ago); some sort of rolling notability guideline that we could progressively loosen over the years as our ability to cope with more and more content developed would be an interesting possibility.
Wikipedia decided to take the road of not controlling growth some time ago, and I think overall it has worked out well. I think we cope with the mass of content well enough.
I see it as concentric circles, like a target; the center is the high-quality articles, and each ring outward is progressively lower quality. All these rings are expanding. The sum total of crap articles is inexorably expanding, but so is the total of useful stubs, the patchy but promising, the serviceable but short, and even the excellent ones.
Over time, the number of serviceable encyclopedia articles has steadily increased, and I see no signs of that stopping. The percentage of articles that are high-quality may not go up, but the quantity and coverage of those articles is constantly increasing.
-Matt