[WikiEN-l] Lists which are sheer nonsense

[Jan Hidders]

On Wed, Mar 05, 2003 at 06:14:25PM -0500, rednblack at alum.mit.edu wrote:
> 
> Okay. People are actively editing [[List of songs whose title does not appear
> in their lyrics]]. Four or five people have assured me I am a rotten git for
> daring to question the necessity of this article, but I can't help it. I think
> the fact that people created, discussed, and edited this article is just wrong.

Your arguments are IMO correct: such lists are useless, don't belong in an
encyclopedia, lead to endless pointless discussions about what belongs on
the list and how it should be structured, set a bad example and lower the
standards. However, they are also easy to make, fun to do, tempt newbies
into participating with a small easy addition, and every now an then
introduce stubs that lead to full-blown articles. I would say that the
latter arguments outweigh the first arguments because the main reason that
Wikipedia works is its community. Let's not forget that it is the spare time
of countless volunteers that makes Wikipedia tick. If such lists help to
maintain and expand that community (with the right people), and I think they
do, then we should cherish them.

-- Jan Hidders

 .---------------------------------------------------------------------.
 | Post-doctoral researcher               e-mail: jan.hidders at ua.ac.be |
 | Dept. Math. & Computer Science         tel: (+32) 3 218 0873        |
 | University of Antwerp                  fax: (+32) 3 218 0204        |
 | Middelheimlaan 1, B-2020 Antwerpen, BELGIUM     room: G 3.21        |
 `---------------------------------------------------------------------'