[WikiEN-l] Readers like infoboxes

[Ray Saintonge]

Bryan Derksen wrote:
> From: Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com>
>   
>> Wikipedia needs to assert control over its content once in a while.
>> The fact that the majority of most-frequented articles on wikipedia
>> are fiction means nothing to administrators who only care for the
>> project, as opposed to those readers who just use up bandwidth and
>> processing power on the server. It would be quite valuable to the
>> project to wipe out fiction articles as it would save heaps on monthly
>> bandwidth bills.
>>     
> I actually can't tell whether this is intended as a serious position statement or as an over-the-top parody of deletionism. If it's parody, good show. If it's serious... good lord. _Our readers are not our enemies_. We're not some sort of noble guardians of an ivory tower, trying to fight off hordes of yokels unworthy to read our precious works of pure academia. There's no "Us" and "Them" to insert a "versus" between. The more people that find value in our content the better, no matter who they are.
>
> If bandwidth reduction is so important, how about we require login to view our pages and bounce non-logged-in viewers to answers.com or one of our other mirrors? (Yes, it's a ridiculous idea. I'm doing the parody thing there).
To satisfy my own curiosity I just hist Random article 10 times, and 
didn't even get a single article from anything that might be termed 
fiction.  The bulk of the bandwidth used in connection with fiction 
articles appears to stem from the interminable crusades devoted to 
ridding us of these articles, and the inevitable response from those who 
seek to protect Wikipedia from this kind of depradation.

Ec