[Foundation-l] Essay

[David Goodman]

At the opposite end of the scale from FA, I often look at links from
articles being proposed for deletion by various processes, and  daily
I  encounter equally questionable non-notable subjects or very
promotional articles, where sometime dozens of   people have made typo
or style corrections, or added categories and internal links, but none
of them have ever challenged or even tagged the fundamental problems
with the article. Is this sort of meticulous detail correction of what
should not be in Wikipedia in the first place a worthwhile activity?

David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Wed, Apr 21, 2010 at 7:31 AM, Bod Notbod <bodnotbod at gmail.com> wrote:
> "The primary function of the Wikipedias is to educate in the sciences,
> philosophy, technology and all that truly useful stuff. Nevertheless
> there's an argument for a Featured Article on South Park because it
> brings in new blood. Such an article can pique the interest of teens
> and twenties and get them involved. Discuss."
>
> My reply would be:
>
> There's a difficulty in that you get trapped. At the moment, the task
> I've set myself is to review Featured Article candidates. You might
> set yourself a task and find yourself dealing with stuff that,
> frankly, isn't very educational. I proofread an article on a Bob Dylan
> album because it came up for review. But should I really be
> proofreading articles on biology, chemistry and physics?
>
> I don't have expertise in those areas but I may at least change an
> "its" to an "it's" or vice versa.
>
> I think at the heart of the question is; do you find yourself sticking
> to a routine without questioning the relative value of what you're
> doing? Is fighting vandalism on a South Park article equal to fighting
> vandalism on science? We all only have a certain number of hours in
> the day.
>
> User:Bodnotbod
>
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