We have a lot of causes of harm to our public image, and as far deletion and inclusion are concerned, there is really no way that we can win public approval. Our notability debates reflect those in the real world, and we will always be criticized for being elitist and indiscriminate.
I do think that "Wikipedia is not a directory" is not being taken seriously enough. Between all the football players, census data, and other such directory data, we are creating an unmaintainable mess. Wikipedia's model rewards people who create new articles, as you can tell by reading AfD. Whether it will reward the considerable work needed to keep all these articles up to date is at the very least questionable. The angst over the fair-use-rationale image deletion crusade suggests that it won't.
On Sat, Mar 8, 2008 at 2:28 AM, quiddity blanketfort@gmail.com wrote:
The longer I spend at Wikipedia (3 years now, not bad), the more I grow to favour Inclusionism, Mergism, and Incrementalism. They seem to be the most optimistic and practical way to continue dreaming big. (which is why I and everyone I know contributes. big dreams)
Deletionists are the main cause of harm to both our "community/ies" and our public image.