On 7/27/06, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
An eternal battle: what does one do if one section is "disproportionately long" for an article which is "too short". Keep it there and hope the rest gets longer? Move it somewhere and risk being accused of censorship?
There was a time when we had this guideline for stubs:
"Try to give more than just a definition — at least a little more. It doesn't hurt to be provocative, as long as you attempt to be unbiased and reasonably accurate. What is interesting and important about the subject? If your introduction would make someone want to read further, then it will probably entice someone to write further. As little as one extra sentence can turn a good description into a brilliant stub, e.g. Salvador Allende was the President of Chile from 1970 until 1973. The CIA might have been involved in the coup that ousted him. With a start like that, you don't have to know any more yourself; a dozen contributors will be falling over themselves to fill in the details." http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Perfect_stub_article&...
It wasn't sustainable, of course, but I think it reflects a very different wiki philosophy than the notion that an article has be perfectly balanced at any given point in time. I think the basic philosophy is valid, [[iff]] the reader is informed about a lack of balance through the appropriate tags. Of course, the description above suggests adding unsourced innuendo, which we have rightly become much more wary of in recent times.
Erik