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

[Anthony]

On 6/11/07, MacGyverMagic/Mgm <macgyvermagic at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/10/07, The Mangoe <the.mangoe at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > On 6/10/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Interesting thought there;  perhaps it would be much better if we had
> > > standards for minimum article quality but made efforts to help
> > > articles pass them, rather than trying to fail them.
> >
> > I'm sorry, but I think just the opposite. If you cannot put in at
> > least one sentence which gives a reason why the article should be
> > included, you shouldn't put it in and expect someone else to dig up
> > that reason for you. That seems to be the primary reason we have to
> > have an AfD process: too many people write articles on stuff that they
> > think is self-evidently notable. 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.
>
> What about the people who WANT to fix articles like that  like the person
> who started this thread. We have cleanup processes. No one asked if
> someone
> wanted to fix it. They just played the numbers game. It's not the amount
> of
> Google hits that count.


I tend to agree with this, in that my standards for what is a useful
starting point are lower than most.

But if something really has no sources at all, does having anything really
help someone who wants to "fix" it?  I do feel there's a minimum level of
effort a contributor should make in order for an article to be kept.