[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia is ... free web hosting?

[Peter Ansell]

On 30/01/2008, Rory Stolzenberg <rory096 at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 29, 2008 6:31 PM, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> > People keep referring to a discussion that only lasted a few hours as
> > evidence that the community supports the idea, as opposed to a few
> > admins who were alerted to the page, including the participants who
> > purchased the domain to use with wikimedia hosting. Wikipedia Cabals
> > are, perhaps surprisingly to you, totally irrelevant to the purpose of
> > the encyclopedia. If wikipedia is going to host websites for people it
> > might as well say it instead of proclaiming the no free web hosting
> > statement as policy (except when its an admin who gets special
> > treatment). If this is meant to be simply ignored because its a joke
> > then it isn't succeeding.
> >
> > Peter
> >
>
> What I'm saying is that this is no difference from, say,
> [[User:Ryulong/Penguin Cabal]] or any others on the list at [[WP:LOC]] (the
> penguin one was just the first I scrolled to), just because some domain
> redirects to it.

Okay, the most humourous WIkipedia space page that I have agreed with
so far is [[WP:ROUGE]], and even then not without extensive discussion
as to its relevance for giving people a view on the real reasons
admins have to do some things. That is relevant, cabals (true/untrue),
or discussions about them, are a totally irrelevant artifact that
doesn't help wikipedia at all. If there wasn't a cabal to keep
irrelevant cabal articles in wikipedia they would be subject to the
WP:NOT guidelines like other pages, but catch 22 says you can't see
the forest for the trees in this case. All of [[Category:Wikipedia
humor]] is irrelevant IMO. But there are enough people who want an
exception for humour to keep it in, and still avoid telling most
people that in WP:NOT a free webhost/social network.

I am not trying really to point this out as a case that should be
deleted while others in either WP:LOC or the humour category, are
kept. Wikipedia is about the encyclopedia first, and only community
for collaboration, not for making up clubs for people to join. Why was
it that Esperanza was deleted? (Not to bring it up as a specific
example relevant to this discussion of humourous cabal jokes, but it
was a big precedent for WP:NOT IMO) If Esperanza had been a humourous
cabal then it would have fit as a precedent of course, but it was too
transparent for that to occur by definition.

Peter