No subject

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1. It promotes elitism, by tending to say that some articles are more equal=20=
than others.<BR>
<BR>
2. Wikipedia is, by nature, a work in progress. Every article can be changed=
, developed,&nbsp; reassessed, and rewritten. The Sifter idea creates an ill=
usion of finality about particular articles--they are "good enough," so to s=
peak. <BR>
<BR>
3. Most articles will be ignored. We are now close to 150 thousand articles=20=
on Wikipedia. I doubt anyone has read them all, and some have been long forg=
otten. In many cases this is because they deal with some arcane subject matt=
er that doesn' t really foster mass interest or debate (more often debate).=20=
As the intro to the BP page itself states: "we couldn't possibly keep track=20=
of all of the brilliant prose here!" In other words, more potential Brillian=
t Prose candidates will be left out than will be added. <BR>
<BR>
4. It can promote factionalism. Some people might have an inordinate number=20=
of articles in BP, so that when they write new articles, their supporters (a=
nd yes, there are people here who think that every word typed in by some of=20=
their Wiki-colleagues is divinely inspired) will immediately nominate it for=
 BP. Once the flame wars die down, it will be there and it will be even more=
 difficult to eliminate POV and other issues--after all, it is "brilliant pr=
ose," isn't it?<BR>
<BR>
5. There is so much left to be done yet. Maybe at a later date we can consid=
er this, but right now there are countless stubs, even more articles taken d=
irectly from EB, and entire areas that are not covered. As an extreme exampl=
e, if we rise above the debate over America-centric vs. Euro-centric article=
s, we will see how little there really is about Africa. Maybe we should be f=
illing in the gaps first, before we start patting ourselves on the back abou=
t how smart we are.<BR>
<BR>
6. Who are these so-called experts who will qualify material? From what I've=
 seen so far, being an academic expert in a particular field hardly protects=
 one from edit wars--Julie and 172 are two primary examples of this. Meanwhi=
le, the only qualification I have seen so far is that they have a B.A. Gimme=
 a friggin' break! (and before I get accused of academic elitism, I make it=20=
known that I dropped out of college and spend an inordinate amount of time a=
t work correcting the BS from the BAs, MAs, and PhDs).<BR>
<BR>
7. Maybe the question isn't so much "why shouldn't we?" but "why should we?"=
 Especially at this particular stage.<BR>
<BR>
Okay, I've had my say. Flame away.<BR>
<BR>
Danny<BR>
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