[WikiEN-l] I'm disappointed in Wikipedia.

[Ray Saintonge]

The Mangoe wrote:

>On 6/10/07, Charlotte Webb <charlottethewebb at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>On 6/10/07, The Mangoe <the.mangoe at gmail.com> wrote:
>>    
>>
>>>Since it isn't, it gets put through AfD to force someone to put
>>>up a real reason. I don't think there's anything wrong with
>>>this, other than people write this kind of article in the first
>>>place instead of providing the notability themselves.
>>>      
>>>
>>If you have been nominating, for deletion, articles which you believe
>>could (or even should) be improved rather than deleted, please cease
>>and desist right now.
>>    
>>
>Well, as a rule I don't nominate AfDs, though at times I do go through
>them. But even so, as a rule, I don't believe that articles can be
>improved unless I know something about the topic which I believe is
>notable and which the article doesn't include. For bio articles on
>people in notable positions, it's not up to me to search for some real
>notability about the person, and it is especially not up to me to dig
>up some personal detail to pad out such an article.
>
If you don't know anything about the topic, and you don't want to do any 
real work, that's good enough reason to leave it alone.

>The thing about most such articles is that they can't be improved. 
>
What basis do you have for saying that if you don't know anything about 
the topic?

>I don't fight it personally, because every attempt I've made to get
>reasonable notability standards set up has been rebuffed by the
>combined forces of the "it's useful" crowd and the "you want to delete
>all my work" crowd. But I see lots of articles, especially bios, which
>could only really be justified by some considerable research, which
>might not turn up  anything anyway. Someone putting a trivial,
>notability-less article doesn't obligate anyone else to do the work to
>prove its notability, and particularly in the case of BLPs I think
>such articles ought to be speedily deleted.
>
So for you the only alternative to doing  the considerable research is 
doing no work at all.  Those who would like to improve the 'pedia will 
be satisfied to add whatever bit they can.  They mostly avoid using 
their own ignorance as a standard for notability.

Ec