User:Improv/Deletion

Part of the goals of Wikipedia is to construct a high-quality encyclopedia, easily and freely updated, available to everyone, harnessing the creative energies and spare time of more people than traditional encyclopedias have. This is wonderful, when it works. Occasionally we disagree as to what belongs in an encyclopedia. Here are my thoughts on the topic.

Lists
Lists are almost never encyclopedic. We see all sorts of crazy lists, such as List of People, and even, in the past, lists of people who have died in a particular (bizarre) way. I don't think these entries add anything to the encyclopedia -- on the contrary, they are useless and look bad. Some types of lists are even, by nature, incomplete (such as the list of people, or list of Nintendo games). I believe that lists should almost never be created on Wikipedia, and often find myself voting for their deletion.

[Does that mean lists of letters within alphabets should be deleted? I would imagine that some people, in truth, do enjoy and are edified by lists of wacky ways that people die. Likewise, by the "encyclopædic" criterion, we should not have lists of Presidents, inasmuch as there will be more (inshallah). Of course the magic waffle word "almost" is brought in to pull our author out of a 'reductio ad absurdum' (which can be found in a list of Latin phrases.]

Schools
Pre-university schools, unless they're quite exceptionally distinct {sic, 'distinctive' or 'distinguished'}, are not notable enough for an entry. Columbine, for example, may deserve an article, but it should be restricted to information pertinent to its relevance. Merely processing students contributes nothing.
 * contributed nothing to whom? +sj +
 * It contributes nothing to the notability of the school. --Improv 18:33, 27 Nov 2004 (UTC)
 * But "notability", being a noun, has certain objections to relevance from a Spinozan point of view.

Fancruft
We have too much. Episodes and episode guides are not notable or encyclopedic. Keep this information on other websites. We don't need an article on every planet in the star wars universe. In general, I think that except possibly for the very most well known series (e.g. lasts for at least 5 years) with sufficient depth, one article per series/show is sufficient.

Radman1, on VfD, posted the following idea:
 * Delete. As another Wiki member so eloquently put it, "Unless the character somehow transcends the book or series (Paul Bunyan, George W Bush, George Babbitt, Don Quixote, Forrest Gump) to become a cultural icon independent of the original work it appeared in, this is nothing more than Wiki contributors indulging and memorializing their personal tastes with an article."  In other words, Fancruft.  Radman1 04:57, 19 Oct 2004 (UTC)

It's another useful metric that I might decide I like.

Directories/Feature Creep
Wikipedia is not a directory. We should not try to have an article on every piece of software in the world, nor every game, nor every website. ("Should" is a very slippery word that usually indicates either a failure to fully investigate the repercussions of one's expressed desires or a desire for a "perfect" [and unattainable, lest boredom then ensue] rather than "real" world.)

Atlas?
I'm not sure if we should have as much geographic information as we have now. Importing census data ... not sure what I think right now. (Doggone it! If you don't know what you think about it, it will continue to grow and grow until it is unmanageable. Take a position. Delete! It can always be restored if you change your mind.)

Events
When there's a notable event that involves an otherwise nonnotable person, the content should probably be put with the event, with the person mentioned only in the entry on the event. Whether to redirect at that point is an open question. Delete or Redirect --Improv 17:42, 24 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Stubs
I have no problem with subs or substubs, provided the topic is notable. Articles can grow like in the legend of Stone soup. The question isn't how good they are at any time, it's what they can become. Refer to Tlön for a good example.