As evidence of the tremendous attractive power of trivia, there has always been the persistent popularity of "The Guinness Book of
Records".
The counter-argument is, the Guiness Book of Records and the Funk & Wagnalls Encyclopedia are two different things. Perhaps this is for a reason, other than the fact that they are printed on paper.
Nobody is discounting the fact that trivia is popular. The question is, does it detract from the perception of an encyclopedia as a serious source of information? Does it threaten to move Wikipedia part of the way down the path to being Everything2?
(Not to mention that 99% of all trivial subjects are not at all interesting to the vast majority of people, like information about one particular elementary school.)
Alex
From: Alex Rosen
Nobody is discounting the fact that trivia is popular. The question
is,
does it detract from the perception of an encyclopedia as a serious source of information? Does it threaten to move Wikipedia part of the way down the path to being Everything2?
Nope. Wikipedia's strength is its comprehensiveness, and its tendency to flesh out, over time, topics that begin with a few facts or ephemera.
Its strength is not its careful editorial judgment, nor will it ever be.
Everything2 and Wikipedia are products of their very different underlying technology (and mission). Wikipedia simply cannot tend very far toward E2 because of the technological differences between the two.
(Not to mention that 99% of all trivial subjects are not at all interesting to the vast majority of people, like information about one particular elementary school.)
Frankly, 99% of all subjects are not at all interesting to the vast majority of people. That isn't a reasonable guideline for Wikipedia.
The Cunctator wrote:
(Not to mention that 99% of all trivial subjects are not at all interesting to the vast majority of people, like information about one particular elementary school.)
Frankly, 99% of all subjects are not at all interesting to the vast majority of people. That isn't a reasonable guideline for Wikipedia.
I think it's very useful in this context to distinguish between Wikipedia.org the ongoing always-in-process website, and some future Wikipedia 1.0, which will be reviewed (somehow) and space-constrained (for print, at least).
It is of course true that an article on my old high school would be undesirable clutter in a space-constrained encyclopedia. But if I wrote one now, it wouldn't hurt anything. It would only ever been seen by people who are interested, and it wouldn't get in the way or bother anyone who isn't.
--Jimbo