[WikiEN-l] We need a policy against vote-stacking

[Tony Sidaway]

On 5/5/06, Philip Welch <wikipedia at philwelch.net> wrote:
>
> Undue weight. It's absurd for Pokemon to have 10,000 times more
> coverage within Wikipedia as, for instance, 19th century philosophy.

It's an interesting idea, but applying this criterion you would end up
with a Diana Moon Glampers encyclopedia, where nobody would dare to
write an article on a popular subject lest he incur the wrath for the
Handicapper General for unbalancing it.

The *embarasse de richesse* with regard to Pokemon characters doesn't
directly hamper the use of the encyclopedia by those wishing to read
about the likes of Hegel and Schopenhauer and the Mills.

It might be said, perhaps, that at most the quantity of Pokemon
articles might drive away people who might otherwise contribute
serious content on another subject.

Then again, there's nothing stopping the compilers of a specialist
encyclopedia on, say, philosophy, taking the Wikipedia content and
placing it on a wiki (or other content editing system) of their own
where it may be extended by those who would be repelled from
Wikipedia, or those who would simply not find the philosophy articles
amid the clutter.   They could apply their own rules, provided the
resulting content was made available under a GFDL-compatible license.