Our beloved Wikipedia, the encyclopedia anyone can edit, is having an identity crisis: does it include all knowledge no matter how trivial, or does it adopt a more stringent editorial guideline to enhance its reputation as a credible reference?
These two conflicting visions are at the heart of a bitter struggle inside Wikipedia between “inclusionists”, who believe that applying strict editorial criteria will dampen contributors' enthusiasm for the project, and “deletionists” who argue that Wikipedia should be more cautious and selective about its entries.
In practice, deciding what is trivial and what is important is not easy. How do you draw editorial distinctions between an article entitled “List of nicknames used by George W. Bush” (status: kept) and one about “Vice-presidents who have shot people” (status: deleted)? Or how about “Natasha Demkina: Russian girl who claims to have X-ray vision” (status: kept) and “The role of clowns in modern society” (status: deleted)?
What? The role of clowns in modern society was deleted? Travesty!
why not just have secondary pages to trivial info?
and I add mine :
why not implementing a rating system such as download.com? (2 ratings : user & editor's)
And even if an admin deigns to keep an article the first time, articles can be nominated for deletion over and over. Some articles have been nominated for deletion over 10 times! Somebody who hated the article must've thought, "the 18th time's the charm!"
For a while, Wikipedia had a crusade against plot summaries, and such things were deleted left and right. Plot summaries are half the reason I even use Wikipedia, to help me jump into fictional series midway. Now, however, a compromise has been reached: Plot summaries are allowed, but they must not take up more than half of the article.
This is something that should be borne in mind whenever viewing Wikipedia, but it is a useful site.