From: Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com
JAY JG wrote:
One of Wikipedia's biggest issues has always been getting taken seriously as an encyclopedia, or being accepted by educators as a reliable (or even acceptable) source. Credibility is also the thing other encyclopedias (i.e. Britannica) harp on. Credibility also brings donations and other kinds of support and funding.
Hmm, I'd think if we weren't being taken seriously as a reference work, the servers wouldn't be getting slowly crushed under the ever-growing weight of readers...
There's a difference between broad popularity and being taken seriously. Wikipedia is free and huge, that alone makes it popular.
At WP's current size, the chances of finding a random vanity article is minuscule - in fact, the critiques of WP's credibility by outside people have been based on points of factual detail in existing articles on familiar subjects, not on whether an "unencyclopedic" article exists or not (which shouldn't be too surprising, since no one will go looking for them in the first place).
Critics will.
Note that I'm not opposed to scrubbing out borderline material, I just don't see a red-alert-the-encyclopedia-is-decaying-right-before-our-eyes situation that requires instant reaction. Our credibility is much more dependent on accuracy and completeness of the high-visibility articles, and energy spent on the marginal is energy taken away from the important.
You have a good point, though I'm not suggesting that there is any "red alert" situation". However, as has also been pointed out, the issue is not just vanity articles and silly articles, but also with the 95% of articles placed on AfD which violate WP:NOT.
Jay.