Talk:2003 Roger Federer tennis season

Article Deletion Discussion
I was looking through the comments on deleting this article, and I saw that some of those who wanted to delete this article made comments such as "Wikipedia is not a sports almanac". Well, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, and according to Dictionary.com, the definition of an encyclopedia is:

A book or set of books containing articles on various topics, usually in alphabetical arrangement, covering all branches of knowledge...

I am somewhat perplexed. If an encyclopedia covers all branches of knowledge, then how is it that any article could be nominated for deletion based on an argument that Wikipedia doesn't cover that topic ? I have had articles deleted based on this argument, and to me it just doesn't hold water, because then the exact same argument could be made for any article. For example, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a repository for warship information, or Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a musical database, or Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not an astrological index. Using those three arguments, we could eliminate several thousand articles...in fact a similar argument could be used to eliminate nearly any article. Take today's featured article, Stark Raving Dad. I could argue that Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place to put CliffsNotes on Simpson's episodes. How about the article on CliffsNotes? I could say Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a place to put describe corporate product lines. Where does it end?

While I concur that blatant advertising, slander, unreferenced work, original research, lewdness, lack of notability of the subject, and the like have no place here, deleting an article based on topic (as opposed to subject) opens a huge can of worms. It happens all the time, and it is wrong. J appleseed2 (talk) 16:41, 19 September 2011 (UTC)