---- "BJörn Lindqvist" bjourne@gmail.com wrote:

On 5/4/06, Erik Moeller eloquence@gmail.com wrote:

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On 5/4/06, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:

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A bridge expert knows that it *is* an important bridge.

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Star Trek is not in the encyclopedia! Only areas of expertise and proveable facts should be accepted. Wikipedia is an area for learning, not competition. If you know you're not good enough, don't try. Yet honestly, 90% of the population is capable if they want to be. They just have to try harder than Star Trek!

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Then again, loving bridges, he may not find it in is heart to delete _any_ article about them that has sources. Which, to a certain extent, is fine with me, but it does have the potential to significantly change the whole "deletionism/inclusionism" balance. Imagine the same concept applied to Star Trek experts. "Tribble Rebellion of 2280? SPEEDY KEEP!"

I don't see the problem? Wikipedia works because autonomous persons and communities can work on their areas of expertise without having to go layers of bureaucracy. Except for a few global rules; Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, Wikipedia is not paper, it is those communities and their ability to work autonomously that is shaping Wikipedia. That work process scales very well and is the reason why Wikipedia contain millions of articles. Centralized processes (like AFD) does not scale very well at all. Therefore I think it makes sense to avoid centralized processes.

The more decentralized, the less people involved, the more easy it is to form consensuses. So if there is a consensus among the group of Wikipedians working on Star Trek articles that "Tribble Rebellion of 2280" should be kept, then that is what should be done. I think it is perfectly clear that those who work in the topic area knows best what articles belong in it. The last thing THEY need is a centralized process involving clueless opinionated people interfering in their business.

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Topical AfD is not a bad idea as long as these subcommunities are as open as the general AfD, and the only process by which they distinguish themselves is one of self-selection. That is, my opinion on a topical AfD should not count less because I have not worked in that topical AfD before.

In theory yes. In practice, people are more likely to listen to someone who has credentials.

-- mvh Björn _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l