[WikiEN-l] Inclusion of unmaintainable articles

[Andrew Gray]

Here's a question which has been (to my mind, at least) raised by the
recent Fleshlight debate...

...should Wikipedia keep articles which the community is unwilling to maintain?

I haven't checked that article's history, so I don't know if it was in
that class or not, but examples certainly exist. There's plenty of
articles which are festering cesspits, one or two pathological editors
warring over them, and no-one trying (or caring) to "make it good".
Many of these, if taken to AFD, will survive with a "notable topic,
keep, cleanup", and the situation will return to the status-quo, with
the vague possibility that One Day a good and hard-working editor will
come along and adopt it.

Is this sort of thing a net gain or a net loss for the encyclopedia?
Thoughts appreciated.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk