[WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

The Cunctator cunctator at gmail.com
Wed Feb 28 05:36:08 UTC 2007


On 2/27/07, T P <t0m0p0 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 2/27/07, John Lee <johnleemk at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > So you are saying that if a field is completely forgotten or outmoded,
> > even
> > if we have the secondary sources to back us up and our encyclopaedia is
> > not
> > on paper, we should not be including articles on that field? I'd like some
> > concrete examples - but then again, these are all hypotheticals since
> > nobody's ever written an encyclopaedia and published it in realtime. Then
> > again, could you perhaps point to some topics fifteen years old which you
> > think would not be worthy of inclusion in an encyclopaedia today, but
> > would
> > have been included in Wikipedia by experts at the peak of the topics'
> > fame?
>
>
> I think our reliance on secondary sources does help a lot.
>
> On the other hand, a lot of pop culture is ephemeral.  Minor entertainers
> and video games come to mind.  Do we need an article on Michael Richards'
> racist tirade?  Britney Spears in rehab?  Do we really want articles on the
> latest Paris fashions, each year and every year?

Yes.

> I suppose such information has a certain historical value, but it doesn't
> fit in with my conception of what an encyclopedia should cover.

It's good that you're starting to admit that your desired conception
of WIkipedia differs from what it actually is.



More information about the WikiEN-l mailing list