On Feb 24, 2007, at 9:07 PM, Daniel P. B. Smith
wrote:
Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia yet. It was _certainly_ not an
encyclopedia _then._ I've always assumed that calling it "the free
encyclopedia that anyone can edit" was a deliberate attempt to keep
the _goal_ clear and always in front of everyone.
Bull. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It's not a publishable one, for a
variety of reasons, quality only being one. But it's clearly an
encyclopedia.
Things change.
Yes. But I've seen nobody provide any evidence that there was a rash
of crazies we couldn't deal with leading to the implementation of
[[WP:RS]] and [[WP:N]]. Or that there was a sudden decrease in
crazies when we had them. Or, really, any correlation between the
two, little yet causality.
-Phil
All that happened was that the Seigenthaler mess scarred the tender
flesh of the collective minds of the community. I suspect it affected
us long-term by providing a paradigmatic case for criticism and poisoning the waters
of fresh recruits. I remember noticing definite differences in policy
discussions and just general discussions on Talk pages bare weeks and
months after the USA Today editorial hit.
--
Gwern
Inquiring minds want to know.