[clug] Wikipedia and Deletionism

[Karun Dambiec]

On 25/03/10 7:42 PM, David Adams wrote:
> Wikipedia is a strange beast; notability therein even more-so.
>
> An easy example.. Poke'mon. Back in the day, each individual Poke'mon 
> had their own wiki page- these pages were filled with a vast, 
> staggering amount of information, including species information, every 
> single appearance in every form of media ever, fan speculation, 
> breeding strategies... the works. It was often remarked that there was 
> more information regarding Poke'mon on Wikipedia than there was 
> information on the Second World War; I am very much inclined to agree.
>
> The articles were eventually merged into 'grouped' articles 
> (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon_%281%E2%80%9320%29), with 
> an index being held at 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Pok%C3%A9mon . It is interesting 
> to note that both the index article and the article on the first 20 
> Poke'mon on the list are, each, longer than the article on Adolph 
> Hitler (especially if one removes the sources text). There are 493 
> Poke'mon on the list, with each individual creature having 
> approximately two to four paragraphs of information. Some (such as 
> Pikachu) have much, much more than this (or articles in their own right).
>
> There's even an summerised article on this problem; the Poke'mon Test 
> (as it became to be known) located here: 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Pok%C3%A9mon_test.
>
> So, essentially, notability on Wikipedia is an extremely fluid, 
> personal subject. I personally think that the whole Poke'mon articles 
> could be merged into one modest article, with perhaps four or five 
> subarticles regarding the TV show, video games, Pikachu (the series 
> mascot) and other media appearances. Hardcore Poke'fans will almost 
> certainly object.
>
> Just some food for thought...
>
>
There seems to be a movement to remove all the pages relating to the 
Australian National University other than a single page.
For instance, each of the colleges, research schools and NICTA all have 
pending requests for deletion.
*For instance, Research School of Physical Sciences and Engineering 
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_School_of_Physical_Sciences_and_Engineering>* 
and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_XXIII_College_(ANU)

Im not sure why each college/school can not have a separate article, and 
i think some of the editors/wikipedia members have gone to far with 
notability/deletionism.

Are there any significant alternatives to using wikipedia?
As the number of new articles on it is decreasing, and much of the 
content that used to be on it is being deleted.