Frederick Noronha wrote:
If anyone convinces Wikipedia that it needs to be "more like the real thing" (whatever that is, including mainstream, printed encyclopedias or Encarta), it would be a great loss for the attempt to build alternatives. Likewise, it would be hardly helpful if anyone convinces Wikipedia that it should focus on the "standard and quality information" argument (whatever that is supposed to mean!) over all other strengths of the Wikipedia experiment.
The value of Wikipedia is as much in the processes that it stands for as its contents. This does not mean that we should embrace clearly inappropriate content, but obscure or remote does not equate to inappropriate. This process does recognize that good content builds up over a length of time with the help of a separate community of editors for each article. A smaller article community implies that the buildup of that article will take longer. There is no need to be impatient about any article.
For someone like me, the strength of the Wikipedia lies mainly in the fact that it has space also for my village of 8000 to be written about for a global audience (in a factual manner, of course). If things that are important to me are going to be seen as "peripheral" (just because they lack size or not being visible enough in cyberspace), then in what way is it different from the mainstream... that has kept me out in the cold for so long, anyway?
When it comes to the size of notable communities, I believe that Rambot has set the standard with his wide selection of United States place names. The standard applied to the Unied States should be taken as a precedent for other countries of the world. I have several volumes published by the Government of India and listing all the post offices in India. From my perspective, if the village is in that publication it is notable. 100 people in a small village in India are just as valuable as 100 people in a small United States village.
Just the other day, a speaker here in Goa, India was describing "remote" communities, and pointing out that the term is misleading in itself. As he put it, the logic of "remoteness" is always connected to our definition of what is the centre (of the world, of the nation state, or whatever). "For people out there, their own location, of course, is the centre of the world, as far as they go," he said.
I have often wondered why Goans that I have met locally here in Canada should become so disporportionately prominent when compared to immigrants from other parts of India.
Ec