Saving Geek Lore and Other Wikipedia Castoffs

Ian Lamont notes an Industry Standard feature on Deletionpedia — a collection of 63,559 deleted Wikipedia pages that range from "vanity entries" or obscure points of reference to heavily edited topics that Wikipedia editors eventually deemed fan fiction, inadequately sourced, or otherwise lacking. Looking through the collection of removed articles, it's apparent that entertaining minutiae are often the target of Wikipedia editors: "Geek lore seems to be a particular target for deletion, with the deleted page of the month a comprehensive guide to 'Weapons of the Imperium (Warhammer 40,000)'. Deletionpedia provides links back to the Wikipedia deletion discussions, which are a lesson in magnification of minutiae; the Warhammer page was removed due to philosophical disagreements over what can be considered credible source material, while a page listing every chalkboard gag in The Simpsons opening credits spent 691 days on the site before being deleted as 'fancruft.'" Note that while Deletionpedia uses MediaWiki, it doesn't have wiki functionality — readers can't alter or update archived entries.

Comments

Shortsighted

[dedazo]

I think WP needs to stop calling itself an "encyclopedia" and just come to terms with the fact that they are nothing more than an enormous repository of pop culture knowledge, with a decent but not impressive (volume-wise) level of actual encyclopedic knowledge.

That doesn't detract from its value, far from it. But they take themselves way too seriously in some cases.

What's the difference if there are 65K more articles? I'm all for removing vanity entries and truly useless crap, but "fancruft" tends to be a rather slippery thing to define.

Let me correct that for you

[jgarra23]

was: I honestly don't get the whole hate that Wikipedia seems to have against sci-fi and geeky topics...

should be:

I honestly don't get the whole justified hate that Wikipedia seems to have against lame sci-fi and moronic topics...

I think you answered your own question!