On Mon, 22 Mar 2004, David Gerard wrote:
On 03/22/04 13:54, Jimmy Wales wrote:
I say: so what? Let's let them do it.
It's not a major problem,
since it's silly not many people will care to do it. It won't be
well-linked from anywhere on the site, so almost no one will ever see
it. I'm flexible on this point, because I think that it's hard to
make blanket judgments, and that we would need a lot of case-by-case
examples before we'd have enough experience to formulate a general
rule.
Another major point in favour of whatever local flavour is to be found
is that it helps break up the endless monotonous articles with nothing
but the blasted census data. Urgh.
Well, I've been trying to remedy that with at least the entries concerning
cites in the state of Oregon. (I'd say about 30-40% of those contain
more than just census material; the latest I've worked on was [[Jacksonville,
Oregon]], which now has details of an archeological excavation of the
now-gone Chinatown of this city.
And I could always start cribbing material from this book a friend gave me
several years ago: _Mysterious Places of the West_ by Salvatore M. Trento.
(I think of it as that book where the author never missed an excuse to
include one of his female "Student researchers" in his pictures. ;-) That
would broaden the scope of a few articles.
But more seriously, I am still concerned when any article about a town or
a city starts including a local business without an adequate explanation
for its importance. I don't know about anyone else on this mailling list,
but I have encountered on my business trips (back when I was employed &
actually made business trips) various books or pamphlets in my hotel room
that would mention how wonderful this or that local restaurant/tavern/store
or tourist trap was to visit. As I've said in the past, & I'll keep saying
until someone tells me to shut up, I don't think Wikipedia's place is to
be a mouthpiece for the Chambers of Commerce of countless thousands of
communities across the world. It's one thing to mention the drugstore in
Wall, South Dakota, & perhaps devote an article to it (I'll furnish an
explanation to anyone who doesn't understand this reference); it's another
thing for me to mention the drugstore 6 blocks to the east of my house.
One is arguably a cultural landmark; the other is just a business looking
to increase its sales.
Geoff