On 9/12/06, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/09/06, Anthony <wikilegal(a)inbox.org>
wrote:
On 9/12/06, daniwo59(a)aol.com
<daniwo59(a)aol.com> wrote:
> 1. The field "Requests" on
"Recent Changes" be changed to "Requested feature
> articles." Instead of asking people to create brand new article, the focus
> should be on improving existing articles.
Why? Is there any reason to believe that
improving a crappy article
into a featured article is better than creating a featured article
from scratch? Maybe most crappy articles are still crappy because
they're not a very useful topic in the first place.
This is answered in Danny's original message, which I will therefore
assume you didn't read before hitting 'reply'.
He gave examples of exceptions, but nothing to suggest whether or not
these were special cases or the majority.
There's
nothing wrong with creating brand new articles, as long as
you're creating *good* brand new articles. To that end I think we
should insist that all new articles are sourced. After a while that
should be extended - all major additions to old articles must be
sourced. Only then, once we've stopped the addition of new unsourced
additions, can we truly start to tackle the old unsourced information.
I think what will happen is that the volunteers will do whatever the
heck they feel like.
That's awfully narrow-minded. Volunteers will, of course, not do
things they don't feel like doing. But there is usually a large range
of things which volunteers are willing to do.
Anyway, in my opinion adding new unsourced information into the
encyclopedia makes the encyclopedia worse, not better. If certain
volunteers are only willing to do this, then we should respectfully
decline their contribution.
Anthony