I have a good knowledge and a large collection of books on animation, particularly Hanna Barbera. Wikipedia's articles on these subjects are very poor and have little sourcing. However before devoting any real time or energy to Wikipedia, I have spent a few months monitoring what goes on here. What I have seen has discouraged me from participating here. I have nearly 1,000 animation articles on my watch list, and almost all of the editing I have seen concerns only formatting, vandalism, removal of vandalism, and the addition of unsourced plot points. The one new article I saw added (a biography of a Chinese celebrity) was deleted and restored only after the article creator spent a ridiculous amount of time adding new sources showing that it had a right to exist here.
From discussions I have watched, it has become clear to me that the leaders of Wikipedia opinion consider the project to be basically finished, with only cleanup left to do on the articles. The only real activity here is at the Talk pages (discussion after discussion after discussion). I see no encouragement of the creation of new articles, in fact it is discouraged. The main article work here seems to be the removal of information that would not be found in an old-fashioned print encyclopedia.
On Jimbo Wales' talk page, I saw the founder of this project scoff at a Featured article on a South Park episode. He claimed to like the series, but believes that it is unfit to show on the front page. Why? Because it might attract the "wrong" kind of editor. This was shocking to me. It told me that I am the wrong kind of editor in Mr. Wales' view, and in the view of the most vocal Wikipedia editors, or, more accurately, debaters. My opinion is the exact opposite of theirs. I do not like South Park, but I believe that if editors have brought an article on that series up to Feature article quality, then they deserve to have their work highlighted.
In this atmosphere, I must ask myself how much information on my own area of interest would be included in a print encyclopedia. Not very much. A print encyclopedia might include short biographies of Hanna and Barbera and possibly an article on the studio, but no article on any cartoon series, and certainly no article on individual episodes or characters. I would want to add much more material than is wanted here. What I have observed at Wikipedia shows me that if I attempt to do this work, most of my time will be spent fighting for this material to remain. Since debating, fighting and arguing do not interest me, I see no point in volunteering to work here. Hanna Barberian (talk) 02:18, 12 March 2012 (UTC)
