On 5/12/07, Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
The reason it's good for the reader, is quite simply, we shouldn't present the reader with crap. We should give the reader who hits the "random article" button a decent chance of finding a decent article. Should we allow ourselves a very broad scope? Yes, of course we should. But not an unlimited one. We should set a bar somewhere, and to say "There must be a good deal of third-party source material available on a subject in order to have an article on it" is a good one.
I don't think our primary readership is people who press the 'random article' button.
IMO, our primary readership is people who want to learn about something. If I see mention of something in a book, conversation, TV show, magazine, web site or whatever - I expect to be able to go to Wikipedia and find out more about it.
If Wikipedia doesn't have information about it because nobody's written about it yet, that's one thing. However, if Wikipedia doesn't have information about something because somebody has arbitarily deemed it "not notable enough", then I'm irritated.
E.g. if I'm reading a book about, say, the early 1990s music scene in Los Angeles - I should reasonably be able to look up *any band or musician mentioned* and find more about them. Any. Even if it turns out there's nothing more to know beyond what my book has, I want to know that.
Doing otherwise is not doing our readers a favor.
-Matt