Bryan Derksen wrote:
I don't see how the "fancruft" we include is any more a "random collection of information" than the vast amounts of sportscruft, militarycruft, politiciancruft, and other sorts of subjectcruft that for some reason have an air of respectability about it that recent popular culture alone seems to lack. Who ever complains about how Wikipedia has articles for almost every ship that happened to participate in WWII, no matter how trivial its role? Or how there are articles about people whose sole claim to fame is an unspectacular one-year Senate position in Smallcounty, Iowa back in the 1820s?
Right! Considering that Iowa did not become a state until 1846 .... :-)
I think the massive inclusiveness of Wikipedia is one of its best traits. Wikipedia is like a specialist encyclopedia that specializes in _everything_. When I see an article about an obscure topic I don't ask myself "should there be an article about this in a general encyclopedia?", I ask myself "should there be an article about this in an Encyclopedia of Stamp Collecting, or Encyclopedia of Star Trek, or Encyclopedia of 18th Century Railroading, or Encyclopedia of Agriculture, etc.?"
Absolutely. It's just a matter of time before we have people dedicated enough to develop all these areas.
Ec