On 6/28/07, Blu Aardvark <jeffrey.latham(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Why does Wikipedia have to have an entry on everything that is reported
by some media source or other?
Gah.
Yes, the event was covered by a few reliable sources, but it didn't take
long for the media to forget all about it. And nobody
will even give a
rat's behind about the Essjay Controversy in five, ten years, except for
maybe a few Wikipedia users who were affected by it.
Oh great Kreskin, please tell me the price of Google stock in 10 years.
Just because a
person or event made some headlines doesn't
necessarily mean that that
person or event is notable.
Well, yes, it does. It was noted. Remember that "notable" is even a lower
bar than "noted".
Oh, it's *verifiable*, to be sure, but
verifiability is not the same as notability, or else
Wikipedia would
have articles on anyone who has ever made their local rag. (Nobody is
arguing for that. At least, I hope nobody is...)
Oh, I have argued for that. Also, that's a straw man. The Essjay controversy
was noted in several national papers and on national television.
Do real encyclopedias devote space to discussing singular events that
happened to be reported by some random notable media
source? Not
generally. Now, granted, real encyclopedias generally don't have lists
of episodes in television series as well (and some would argue that
having those lists is one of Wikipedia's strong points), and there are
quite a few other things that might not be found in traditional
encyclopedias due to the fact that Wikipedia is an entirely different
medium. However, as for events that just happened to get a flurry of
media attention that then died down, isn't that what Wikinews is for?
By "real encyclopedias" I assume you mean "dead-tree for-profit
closed-development encyclopedias", since a real encyclopedia in the sense of
satisfying the meaning of the wor "encyclopedia" would contain all human
knowledge in it.
And Wikinews has more in-depth coverage of the Essjay controversy.