Wikipedia

[redbird]

One of the odd things about dropping in on Wikipedia briefly on a regular basis (I try to look at my watchlist a couple of times a week) is that I get periodic messages on my user page, about articles I have no recollection of, because I worked on them five years ago. On at least one occasion, someone thought I had created such an article, because I was either the last editor before, or the first after, the migration to the current software, so a complete article history goes back to me. So I'm asked to defend against deletion a page that I made an attempt to turn into something sane, on a topic that probably doesn't need an article.

The latest I've been asked to attend to is "Early Infanticidal Childrearing." The note says, under the title,

Remember that?

A new editor, Cesar Tort, has done a major edit of the article and changed the title to [[Psychohistorical views on infanticide]], but I still think it is highly problematic. I had a detailed exchange with him in which I set out my problems with the revised article and he responded [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Early_infanticidal_childrearing#My_own_objections_to_the_article] here - it would take some time to read through, but several years ago you had many valuable comments, and I would be grateful if you could look at the revised article and my comments, and those of others in sections below mine, and add your voice.

While I may have had valuable comments then, right now I am shorter on valuable time, so I'm not planning to pursue this.

Comments

[a-d-medievalist.livejournal.com]

Oh Lord. I remember that one! Oy.

ETA -- I looked. Why am I not surprised that, like the arguments at the Copernicus article, it's the same bizarro, different players?

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Taking no position on the Topic itself, I *splutter* at the idea of deleting items from Wikipedia on the grounds that they're "not necessary or important". One of the major points in favor of Wikipedia, for me, has always been that it can and should contain material anyone might ever find interesting or useful -- unlike paper encyclopedias, it's not limited by space constraints, popularity, or some committee's idea of what is or ought to be Important. But then, I'm not happy, either, with the idea that its Articles should (try to) be definitive. I'd rather see a format that acknowledges and presents differences of opinion, on the grounds that a substantial amount of what we call "knowledge" involves a great deal of opinionation.

That said, yeah, it's not likely that The Universe has appointed you to adjudicate on this topic, and if you don't have time to play with it, you don't have time for it.

[redbird]

There are degrees of not important, though. There are an awful lot of people named, say, Jim Smith, and huge numbers of entries that describe the ones who are still in junior high or high school are likely to make it harder rather than easier to find information. (There is also a policy on biographies of living persons that basically says "we don't want to deal with libel suits," and letting everyone create pages "about" the people they know would almost certainly run into that.)

Whether arrant nonsense deserves article space is an interesting question, and comes down in part to what you want an encyclopedia to be. There is no shortage of web space, generally, for you, me, or anyone to put up weird things like TimeCube, or biographies of our cats.