In part in response to recent edit disputes, I have suggested a new policy:

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia%3ACheck_your_fiction

(complementing "Check your facts"). It appears to me that we have not really defined what types of fiction are OK on Wikipedia, inviting all sorts of micronation-fantasies, online RPGs, fan fiction and so on. In the above policy, I merely recommend not adding fiction that is limited to an insignificant number of participants. While the "fact" that this is fiction is to some extent verifiable, the small involvement of others makes it hard to expand and improve these entries, and they have little value for us as an encyclopedia.

I recall a discussion where someone suggested that we shouldn't have articles about every "anti"-movement, and that there would probably be hits for "anti-banana", too. I checked, and there are. The Anti Banana Society: http://antibanana.8m.com/ A typical teenager nonsense page, much like many micronations. I doubt anyone would want an article about this one.

Instead of just *recommending* that we do not add fiction shared only among a small number of participants, I suggest that we prohibit it entirely or at least restrict it to single articles (e.g. "Star Wars fan fiction"). This would allow us to quickly resolve many disputes caused by people bent on adding fringe fictional material to Wikipedia.

There seem to be plenty of people who have lost their ability to properly distinguish fantasy from reality (or never had it in the first place, or are still too young to be expected to have it) and we should define a clear policy on how to deal with these people and their writings. Wikipedia is not Everything2.

My apologies if this particular horse has already been mutilated.

Regards,

Erik