[Wikimedia-l] crazy deletionists!

[Andreas Kolbe]

On Wed, Jul 4, 2012 at 12:38 AM, Marc A. Pelletier <marc at uberbox.org> wrote:

> On 03/07/2012 7:04 PM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
>
>> What would a Wikipedia look like that did not make use of press sources?
>> It
>> would look a hell of a lot more like an encyclopedia. Thousands of silly
>> arguments would never arise. Thousands of apposite criticisms of Wikipedia
>> would never arise. These are good things.
>>
>> Unfortunately, such a Wikipedia would also have vastly impoverished
>> coverage of popular culture and current affairs. The articles on Lady Gaga
>> and Barack Obama would be years behind events; the articles on the Japan
>> earthquakes, which I believe Wikipedia was widely praised for, would only
>> now begin to be written, articles on many towns and villages would lack
>> colour and detail.
>>
>
> Well, if I were suddenly named dictator of Wikipedia, I'd probably suggest
> that a "recent event" namespace be created, where popular media were
> acceptable sources, and make them verbotten in mainspace.  Mainspace
> articles might have a hatnote with a link to the other namespace along the
> lines of "for recent, less authoritative coverage".
>
> We'd have our cake and eat it too.



How would you deal with biographies of people like heads of state, who are
subjects of serious academic study as well as daily news articles?