[WikiEN-l] What makes a good article?

[T P]

On 2/26/07, Phil Sandifer <Snowspinner at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> By comprehensive I mean that it covers what it should. We could write
> lots of tests for this (several present themselves), but for now,
> let's leave it at that. It's not missing anything. Note that NPOV is
> an aspect of comprehensiveness. This also covers excluding stupid
> trivia, to my mind. It also means that it provides a good start to
> research. This includes providing further places to look, i.e. "If
> you want to know more about Derrida, go read..."


Comprehensiveness sounds good, but there is a lot of room for disagreement
about what "should" be included.  Articles also need to be focused and
balanced, because on the Web they can't be very long.  We have links so
excessive detail and tangents can be linked to.  And too many articles have
long sections on one aspect while giving short shrift to other aspects.

By accurate I mean that nothing in it is incorrect. Currently we try
> to achieve this by sourcing, and in some cases that's obviously going
> to be necessary. Where those cases are is something we need to
> determine better. Sourcing should be used to back up things a
> reasonable reader might doubt.


I despise the current FA practice that "everything needs an inline
citation".  Basically all you need to pass FA is a lot of citations.

Interesting articles will establish context. They should be able to
> show why the subject is interesting to someone who isn't already a
> fan/scholar/whatever of the subject. I would particualrly note that I
> think we'd be in much better shape if we stopped talking about
> notability and started talking about interestingness. This would put
> us in a position to give more of a pass to well-written, thorough
> articles on odd but cool topics. This is good - it has demonstrably
> proven itself to be something people expect from Wikipedia. [[Heavy
> Metal Umlaut]] anybody?


I'm not sure this is the same issue, but I had an argument with someone who
wanted to include some loosely related material because it "related [the
subject] to people's lives".  Frankly I don't think we need to "sell" a
topic to the audience.  People look up articles in an encyclopedia because
they are already interested in the subject, it's not like a magazine where
you come across the topic randomly.

Adam