[Wikipedia-l] Years in review and the need for editorial judgement

[Robert Graham Merkel]

A relatively new contributor, Ellmist, has been adding articles
about Robert Heinlein's novels.  This is a good thing - Heinlein
was an important sci-fi writer, and we should cover his work in 
some detail.

However, they have added the publication dates of his books
to the applicable "Year In Review" articles.  Is this such a
good idea?  Probably not.  I doubt that everything Heinlein
wrote was so momentous to warrant such a listing.

This is a more general problem with the year in review listing.
Unlike virtually everything else in the 'Pedia, these articles are
space-limited by their very intention (to provide a concise overview
of what went on in the world in that year).  Therefore, if we wish
to retain them in the current form, we're
going to have to exercise editorial judgement as to the things
sufficiently important to list there.

The NPOV isn't a great help here.  It says we should resolve disputes
by by characterising the
dispute and letting the differing opinions speak for themselves.  
I can't see how that helps.  Because we are space-limited, we *can't*
just list every event that somebody (or even a large group of people)
thinks is important, state why those people think it was important, 
and let the reader come to their own conclusions.

Lists like this are a special case, and so I would argue that we should
make special rules to handle it.  What those special rules should be I'm
not sure.  As a "meta-rule" I think we need fairly strict section 
guidelines on what can go into each section of the Year in Review 
entry.

Let me play Devil's advocate for a minute. The fact that we might need 
special rules for Year In Review articles makes me wonder whether 
they are, indeed encyclopedia articles or something else entirely.
If not, do they really belong as part of the Wikipedia or are they
a job for another projct with different rules?  Probably not, but it's
something to think about.

Opinions?

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Robert Merkel	                           rgmerk at mira.net

Go You Big Red Fire Engine
-- Unknown Audience Member at Adam Hills standup gig
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