Jimmy Wales wrote:
Rick wrote:
My concern was not with some place that claims to
have invented the
hamburger: it was just that the original poster was adding
off-the-cuff pizza places that, at least as far as was indicated in
the article, had no particular significance except possibly to the
poster. To me, this is POV: "These are the places you should eat at,
not any others."
Possibly it's POV, but I don't read it exactly that way. I'd say that
the problem is not really POV here, but rather style and selectivity.
We could frame it as a POV dispute, but I don't think that the person
who wrote it really intended to slight anyone or advocate for
anything.
Agreed, but for some POV is a too convenient bazooka for shooting down
other people's contributions.
In a short article on New Haven, Connecticut, it
doesn't make
stylistic sense to write about "On Route 4, there is a McDonald's
restaurant which was founded in 1987. This restaurant, interestingly
enough, is part of a worldwide chain of very similar restaurants. The
menu includes a variety of American-style fast food, including
primarily hamburgers, french fries, and soft drinks. In recent years,
the menu has been expanded to include more healthy alternatives, as
well."
McDonald's is an interesting example. They're ubiquitous. If you've
seen one you've seen them all. My guess is that there probably is one
in New Haven that is very near to these others. It was not mentioned in
the article, but unless there was something special or unique about that
particular McDonald's -- why bother?
And suppose someone wanted to write a really stupid and
pointless
article "Fast food in St. Petersburg, Florida", including the silly
paragraph I wrote above. And assume that the information could be
confirmed.
I didn't see it as completely silly.
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.
I generally take this approach too. Sometimes those who want to remove
these things remind me too much of a Dr. Strangelove who would go to any
extent to preserve bodily humors.
Ec