[Foundation-l] Pre-wikis vs. maturing Wikipedia: taking away dedicated editors?

[teun spaans]

<quote>
* They have to do lots of original research; it is impossible
 to follow development of the railway infrastructure and
 operations using only high quality published sources;

* They got bitten a bit by the "notability" discussions in their
 field; they want to document every track, every junction
 and every locomotive and they are tired of discussing
 how "notable" a particular piece of railway equipment
 really is.
</quote>

Notability discussion seem to spring up on every wiki, and often seem to
lead to very heated discussions. The question of notability is also somehow
tied to reliable published sources. I remember a discussion where an
article on a game with >20 milllion players was removed because of lack of
appropriate sources.

Imho it is good that we do have rules on notability - we dont want to have
every wikipedian describe his entire family - but every rule seems to have
its quirks.

On the dutch wiki i recently encountered a discussion on notability of
Tolkien articles. Fans are describing every corner of the Tolkien world,
but in this discussion the notability of beetle species, plant species and
chess openings was also raised. Personally I don't mind too much about
notability - if the stuff seems relevant enough for a specialized paper
encyclopedia, i feel it's worth including it in a wikipedia.

''Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet is given free
access to the sum of all human knowledge''

I wish you health and happiness
Teun Spaans