The Economist has an interesting article about the battle between the inclusionists and the deletionists in Wikipedia. The fascinating thing about wikipedia is that it is the largest encyclopedia ever created and that it is growing continuously. But this growth has not gone unquestioned. What should be on wikipedia and who should be allowed to put it there?
The latter question seems stupid since the whole point of wikipedia is that it is a space which can be edited by anyone. But, in reality, this is not the truth. Anyone can create an account and anyone can begin creating and editing pages but there are limitations here. One limitation is the (albeit minor) learning curve. Most people will be able to overcome this relatively easily, it only requires a bit of effort.
A more difficult limitation is the barrier created by the administrators who vet new pages and delete those which they find do not reach up to the wikipedia quality standards. The pages discussed in the Economist article dealt with whether or not fictional Pokemon characters should be included in the dictionary.
From my point of view I have attempted to create two different posts on the Swedish wikipedia only to have the both deleted after a short moment. I understand the reference my censor pointed me to on both occasions (the quality standards linked above but in Swedish). But I disagree since the articles I was attempting to write was similar to several other articles in the Swedish wikipedia.
Basically anyone can join in but after being censored twice by a deletionist my point of view is Sod it! I just can’t be arsed to try to contribute…
Update: When I decided to write this post I was a bit embarrassed to admit that my stuff was not good enough for wikipedia – but my irritation got the better of me. Now I have read that I am not alone, Martin over at Aardvarchaeology, writes that he too is a inclusionist that has had articles deleted. Sorry to here it Martin but I am glad to hear that I was not alone. By the way – I highly recommend Martin’s blog.