From: Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia
No they are written with the objective of
avoiding an extremely bad
encyclopedia.
Strange. Because we were doing a fine job of writing a good
encyclopedia before we had them, so I'm not exactly sure what we
accomplished there.
Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia yet. It was _certainly_ not an
encyclopedia _then._ I've always assumed that calling it "the free
encyclopedia that anyone can edit" was a deliberate attempt to keep
the _goal_ clear and always in front of everyone.
Various
articles with fridge fanatics would be an example.
I must be remembering the two years I spent editing Wikipedia before
[[WP:N]] and [[WP:RS]] were codified wrong, because I'm pretty sure
we were capable of dealing with such groups before we had them.
Sounds like the classic dispute between the entrepreneurs and
innovators who start things and the more pedestrian, less imaginative
types that make them work and maintain them.
Things change.
It's not like it was back then. When a dollar was a dollar. And the
girls were prettier. And we had _real_ music then, wonderful music,
not this modern stuff, noise, it's just noise, I tell you.
Ya can talk, ya can talk,
ya can bicker, ya can talk,
ya can bicker, bicker, bicker,
ya can talk, ya can talk,
ya can talk, talk, talk, talk,
bicker, bicker, bicker,
ya can talk all ya wanna
but it's differnt than it was.