[WikiEN-l] What's wrong with the world?

[Haukur Þorgeirsson]

This old edit on [[Holler]] is one of my favorites:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Holler&diff=5401691&oldid=4709324

The article went from bogus information
on a purported Norse god to what looks
like a probable copyvio on a Spice Girls
single. (If there was an online source it
can't be found anymore.)

On the Norse mythology articles, which is
my primary sphere of interest on Wikipedia,
irrelevant fancruft tends to accumulate and
distract from the main content of the entries.

For an example see [[Yggdrasil]] which has
a large Popular Culture section and a disambiguation
entry, both of which could be summarized with
"a bunch of things in a bunch of games/novels/etc.
have been named after the mythological Yggdrasil".

Sometimes I snap and delete some of the stuff.
For example I removed the following from [[Fenrisulfr]]:

"Fenrir appears as a summonable character in Squaresoft's Final Fantasy
IX. Also it is a summonable creature in Final Fantasy XI."

Recently, of course, the poor wolf got this added to
the top of his page:

"For the character from the Harry Potter novel, see Fenrir Greyback."

The article on [[Nótt]] the personification of "night"
in Norse mythology had this at its top:

"For the Harry Potter character, see Minor Dark wizards in Harry Potter."

The irony here is that a bunch of real people have been
named "Nott" and singling out a *minor* dark wizard from
the Harry Potter books is patently absurd.

I don't actually mind fancruft. I can even appreciate that
there are probably more people who care about Harry Potter
mythology than Norse mythology. But still, I don't want it
in my face all the time :)

Regards,
Haukur