User:Alan Liefting/Essays/Need more useful stuff

Without the notability guidelines Wikipedia would consist mostly of articles about MySpace bands, Pokémon characters, bibliographies of about half the global population, every single company with a small advertising budget, and stub articles on all the books that someone found to be of at least a vague interest. At present, as the notability guidelines currently stand we can get rid of the MySpace bands and Pokémon characters thought speedy deletion, PRODDING or an AfD.

Unfortunately the zillions of other articles about tin-pot companies and boring people and books that are just a rehash of Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code are kept because they fit in with the inclusiveness of the notability guidelines. Do we want Wikipedia to be a company directory, a Who's Who of everybody that has ever lived, or a library catalogue? NO, we don't! But that is where we are heading!

We need more useful stuff.

It seems that editors create articles on books, companies and people rather than stuff you would generally expect to see on an encyclopaedia. The notability guidelines for these types of articles must be tightened.