[Wikipedia-l] Collaborative, up-to-the-minute construction of current and ongoing events of historical significance

[Vicki Rosenzweig]

At 07:05 AM 8/12/02 -0600, Fred Bauder wrote:

>"Current events is not a news page. We shouldn't be in the business of
>writing articles about breaking news stories, unless indeed we can be very
>confident, as in the case of the September 11 attacks, that in the future
>there will be a significant call for an encyclopedia article on that topic.
>One very significant danger is that news articles must be kept current in
>order to remain accurate. Wikipedians might begin a news article and then
>simply lose interest in the topic, whereupon the article becomes
>inaccurate. In short, we aren't set up to be an amateur news organization,
>and we shouldn't try to compete with professional news organizations."
>
>In this case the significance of the stock market downturn is not yet
>determined; the invasion may not happen at all but is sure to be
>significant when it does. It is pretty clear that an article that does
>doesn't attract participation is a loser. If an article does attact
>significant participation it provides a record of contemporary views of the
>event.
>
>I think any event might be mentioned in current events with links to
>existing or proposed background articles. The event itself might not be a
>worthy article.


Indeed. This is why I put a note in Current events about the Colombian
state of emergency, but made the links to Colombia and the president (who
doesn't yet have an article).
-- 
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr at redbird.org
http://www.redbird.org