From: Steve Summit scs@eskimo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] GNAA Deleted! Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2006 16:46:29 -0500
Tony wrote:
Steve Summit wrote:
...As I wrote in my very first contribution as a registered user, during the July 2005 deletion nomination, ...true story: this morning I was idly curious about GNAA, and was pleased to discover the Wikipedia article, so that I didn't have to favor GNAA's site with an undeserved hit. Trolls they certainly are, and sad it is that they've become "notable", but like it or not, they are, and the article is wholly appropriate.
What definition of "notable" are you using? The only definition of that word that matters at Wikipedia is...
It's not so much what definition I am using, but rather, which one I *was* using in that discussion, last year. It was clearly different from the definition (as you say, the only definition) that matters today.
I do not want to re-open the deletion debate on this mailing list. Skimming the votes (and unless there was some vote-stacking), they look pretty convincing, in their way. I am not trying to dispute the result; I am merely lamenting it.
The point of my first-person account, in that discussion last year, was an empirical one: all speculation and armchair philosophy (about what Wikipedia "ought" to contain) aside, I was a reader who had come to Wikipedia looking for an answer, and was pleased to have found it. I saluted, then, the courage that allowed Wikipedia to supply that answer, contentious and unpopular though it may have been. On this point, I fear the project is the less, for lacking such courage today.
I didn't mean to come across quite so stridently there, Steve. I've been knee deep in discussions over at the notability guideline; some of that may have spilled your way. Sorry about that. I don't want to re-open the AfD discussion either.
I will offer my thought in response to your closing point: I'm glad the project has the courage to assert our commitment to high standards of sourcing. I'd rather we have a well-sourced article for eveything for which that's possible, and remain silent on topics for which sourcing isn't possible.
If we keep the bar high, it will encourage other wikis to provide good coverage of topics we pass over. That's not a bad thing. Wikipedia can do better by finding its niche and doing what it does well than by trying to be all things to all people.
Tony/GTB
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