New subject: A mailing list whose content is all the material deleted from Wikipedia?

23 Oct 2004

...
  From: NSK &lt;nsk2(a)wikinerds.org&gt;

 On Saturday 23 October 2004 13:36, Rebecca wrote:
  What self-respecting encyclopedia gives me the
right
 to write an article on my deceased cat? 
 I see no reason why the online WP couldn't have such an article. 
 Obviously the
 1.0 paper edition couldn't, but if you have disk space and you flag the
 "non-encyclopedic" articles as such, there is absolutely no problem. 
There is no problem if what you are trying to do is something other 
than create an encyclopedia.

There is a _big_ problem _if_ what you are trying to do is create an 
encyclopedia.

Wikipedia is a project whose purpose is to create a free encyclopedia.

Encyclopedias should not contain "non-encyclopedic articles." You do 
not improve an encyclopedia by putting in non-encyclopedic articles, 
any more than you would improve the Superbowl by putting in a 
performance of _Hamlet_.

You say we are removing valuable content from Wikipedia. Well, all of 
this material is GFDL-licensed just like everythiing else, and you are 
perfectly free to copy it into Wikinerds.

Furthermore, if you are serious about the value of this material, and 
if _you_ have disk space, I believe the community here would be 
agreeable to set up some continuing arrangement whereby every article, 
prior to deletion, is emailed to you for inclusion in Wikinerds. The 
total volume is really not that large; far less than an active USENET 
newsgroup. if you check the deletion log, 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_log , you will see that 
about 500 deletions were made on 22 October. Most were _extremely 
short_, less than 200 bytes each but even if we assume an average size 
of 5000 bytes that's only 2.5 megabytes. (I believe the real number 
would be well under 500K). And disk is cheap.

If you not sure you actually want content like "SOMETHING THAT 
PHILLIPPE GEORGE TUCK SAYS, FROM CALNE IN WILTSHIRE WHEN HE IS VERY 
VERY DRUNK AND I LOVE HIM LOADS" or "fvgkfcgyufdcyrfdrt7rsx5esasees== 
Headline text ==kkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkkmnjknjvyhi 
ancstdxydtsjsxtesb'ljasgvbjo..." or ""Hocus Pocus (novel)"
(content 
was: 'poop')," we could send you only articles that are deleted as an 
outcome of the VfD process. That's only 20 articles per day; if we 
assume an average of 5000 bytes, that's only 100K per day. I think the 
real amount of traffic would be less than 30K per day.

Is Wikinerds interested in such arrangement?

Perhaps we could even set up a mailing list whose content is all the 
material deleted from Wikipedia. Anyone concerned about what is being 
deleted could subscribe.

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith(a)verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/