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