Matt Brown wrote:
On 11/14/05, dpbsmith@verizon.net dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
And "The Encyclopedia of Chicago," "The Star Trek Encyclopedia," and "Oh, Yuck: The Encyclopedia of Everything Nasty" are not part of any comprehensive encyclopedia either, nor should they be.
I only half-agree here. The single focus of these works should not be in Wikipedia in terms of selection and treatment, but there is no reason why many of the subjects covered in these could not be in Wikipedia.
I agree---I don't necessarily think a million Pokemon pages are the most useful thing on Wikipedia, but I don't see why it *hurts* anything to have them either. I do think a lot of the reason for specialized encyclopedias doesn't apply to Wikipedia: 1) They tend to be produced by different, specialized companies; and 2) They have space constraints. Wikiprojects can mimic (1) without actually forking, and (2) doesn't apply.
-Mark