On 7/16/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
It's not fair to say that those interested in a topic support all articles in it however trivial.
In my own fields of interest, I think I know enough to be able to use other arguments, and I am particularly eager to see only articles about things I consider important. Dubious faculty articles, for example, are often supported by those who can't tell that an instructor at a college is not automatically notable, but not by those who know the academic world.
But we are losing sight of the purpose of WP, which is that it is constructed for the purpose of being used as a encyclopedia, and should contain what readers might reasonably expect to find in an contemporary encyclopedia, and in particularly in this one, which includes a thorough treatment of popular culture, including the necessary infrastructure of guides and lists and categories. Given that individual songs are within the scope, a list of them by topic is also. To decide if a list is too trivial (or all inclusive) to include, whether it would be used or found interesting is relevant.
I think some people have lost sight of something much more important, or failed to internalize it in the first place.
Namely that Wikipedia is *not* intended to _merely_ be an up to date version of what a "general encyclopaedia" ought to aspire to be. From the very outset, at the heart of Wikipedia has been a greater aspiration; to expand the boundaries of how people see what an encyclopaedia is. It is well written in the early framework setting documents that wikipedia should not limit itself to covering what a general encyclopaedia does, nor should it cover everything that a specialized reference work for people fervently interested in a very tight niche of knowledge might cover, at the veryl least not to the same depth of detail.
But Wikipedia is, has and should continue to be somewhere between those. More broad than a general encyclopaedia, not as detailed as specialized reference works, but encompass everything that subject oriented reference works for a general audience would cover. The metaphor for me is that we should aim to be a compendium of general reference works, not a distillation of them.
-- Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]