[Wikipedia-l] Middle Earth controversy

[Kurt Jansson]

Hi Chuck!


> IMHO, I don't see why we can't have an article called
> Elrond or Bilbo Baggins, and have in the first line,
> "Bilbo Baggins was a character in [[Middle Earth]]..."
> and I think it's fine to have a fictional character as
> an encyclopedia entry.  After all, Wikipedia is not
> paper... I think it will turn out much differently
> than traditional encyclopedias and we'll have to
> accept some non-traditional ideas to do it.

That's also my opinion about this theme. I think the only problem that
exist is when a word or a name descibes fictional and non-fictional
thing/persons. But that's the same problem that we have had before, for
example with Mars, which is a god, a planet and something to eat (I
don't know the English expression). When I write an article and want to
link to Mars I search if there is [[Mars (planet)]], or - if I'm lazy
(most of the time) - I link to [[Mars]]. There's a link on [[Mars]] to
[[Mars (planet)]] (in the German wikipedia at least), so I can't see the
problem here. People know from which page they are coming from and if
they are searching for a planet or if the are hungry.

(BTW, I like it when I stumble over those pages and get to know meanings
of a word I didn't know.)

Bye,
Kurt