The trouble with Wikipedia
I love Wikipedia — as many people have noted, it’s an incredibly well-maintained public resource of information written by its users. What makes it such a valuable resource is that everyone who contributes can bring their own area of expertise to bear. No piece of knowledge is left out, as long as it’s truthful and sourced. And yet there is one giant flaw in the system. Entries can and are frequently deleted due to “lack of notability.” In other words, if one Wikipedian decides that a minor artist of the early twentieth century isn’t “notable,” he can tag it for notability and it will be deleted speedily and without discussion.
The question I ask in my column this week is why? Given that there is an unlimited amount of space on Wikipedia, why should we worry about whether something is “notable”? If it’s true and it’s sourced, it’s a piece of knowledge that should be in Wikipedia. Why should only the famous and “notable” be preserved for future generations? Read more about this problem with Wikipedia in my column.
June 10th, 2007 at 8:33 pm
My sentiments exactly! And we’re not alone. (There’s a box you can get there for your user page.)
June 12th, 2007 at 12:45 pm
You could always start up your own wiki of the non-notable, perhaps called “WikiWho?!”.
June 16th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
I also wonder why. Apparently civilization as we know it would collapse, and the universe would get girl cooties.
June 17th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
The answer, quite simply, is that if you don’t set some sort of bar for entry, every idiot who thinks that their blog or twitter posts or mere existence deserve to be recorded for posterity will spam the encyclopedia with what is little more than self-advertisement and narcissism.
June 18th, 2007 at 8:25 am
There are easy ways to get rid of spam on Wikipedia. In fact, there is a flag you can put on entries that are spam. You don’t need to flag spam as “not notable” to get rid of it — just flag it as spam!
June 19th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Once you start up “WikiWho?!”, you could have a lot of fun linking to stuff in Wikipedia…
July 7th, 2007 at 6:50 pm
Seems pretty anti- long tail.
July 10th, 2007 at 7:10 am
Yes, I’m always shocked when things like Petticoat Junction have their own Wikipedia page, but then again I was the one who was looking that up and it proved invaluable for my blog.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
I like Wikipedia despite all these sentiments. Starting your own wiki sounds cool!