User:Serpent's Choice/Wikiphilosophy

Revision and deletion

It is probably possible, for any given topic, to write an article so poor, so incomplete, so inadequately documented, that it would enter the deletion process. And, for a wide array of reasons, no small number of articles are so written. I do not mean to condemn the authors; many people create articles about topics that they know exist, but that they know little about. Many editors are new and have not yet gotten a feel for the rythym of policies and guidelines. Quite a few contributors lack the assets and access that makes documentation easier.

But where I do find occasional fault is with the deletion process and its oft-overeager participants. To be certain, each day brings its share of corporate spam, autobiographies of people who haven't done much of anything yet, and garage band hopefuls who have never released a song. But hidden between the cruft and the conflicts of interest are articles that should be spared from deletion. Indeed, many are. But I cannot escape the belief that more could -- and thus, should -- be.

There is a critical difference between unverified and unverifiable, between a claim that is uncited and one that cannot be. The first reaction to a bad article (at least, to a bad article that is not clearly unsalvageable) should not be to comment for deletion, especially if that argument rests solely on the sandy foundation of notability without regard to Wikipedia's most basic tenets. No, the first reaction should be to see if the problems can be fixed, if the article can be mended. Sometimes, that takes more than a Google search. But, as we -- all Wikipedians -- have been asked to begin a dedicated push for quality, that is our sacred burden.

Improve the web

Building the web is easy. Or, at least, easy enough to have given us 6,909,769 articles so far and near-countless connections among them. Improving the web? That's harder.

There are a staggering amount of articles in the encyclopedia, and hitting the random link, fixing up an article, and moving on seems somehow inadequate. There are cleanup pages, to be certain: lists of articles needing verification, needing POV disputes settled, needing copyediting, needing Wikifying, needing.... But the backlogs are substantial, and so those tools, while valuable to many, do not differ from the whole of article space by many degrees. What is a solution, then?

I suggest using the web of Wikipedia articles itself as a tool. Hit that random page button until an article appears that is clearly appropriate, clearly belongs in Wikipedia, but that clearly cannot stand in its current state. Sadly, it isn't likely to take long to reach one at this time. It might not be a familiar topic; in fact, it might be better if it isn't. Do a little research. Get some sources. Make it an article worth reading.

Then, take a look at what links to it. Remember, all those pages were referring to the weak article that has now been revised into something better. Examine them, too. Verifying and citing the first article can probably give information for closely related concepts, too. Probably one of them will have been in dire condition itself. So, fix it, too. As more articles are revised and restructured and rehashed, the list of possible links to follow -- backward or forward through the web -- grows. Follow ones that are interesting, or ones that can be cited conveniently, or need the most help. But by improving the web using the web, the encyclopedia becomes stronger, more than the sum of its pages.

Historiography

A frequent discussion regarding notability in AfD is that encyclopedic notability must be persistant. This is the so-called five-year (or ten, or twenty, or one hundred) test: will there still be interest in this topic 5, 10, 20, or 100 years from now? I think this argument offers a false dilemma. Let's turn to our paper inspiration for an explanation of my views. On a regular basis, there are new editions of the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Of course, each edition has new articles, and some old articles are retired. If this were not the case, there would only be new printings, not new editions! From a historiographical persepctive, the Brittanica, as a whole, could be said to include the articles in every edition since its inception. Very few people use the 1911 edition to look up information, but that content is still encyclopedic (and, in fact, is the basis for a series of articles here due to public domain status). So, too, Wikipedia; in fact, we have the luxury of more frequent (that is, real-time) editions, because we are not paper. Just because something might be forgotten in ten years or twenty doesn't make it "not encyclopedic" or even "not notable" ... no more than we should purge contributions from the 1911 Britannica that weren't still present in the newest edition.