Inclusionism: Difference between revisions
Revision as of 20:17, 28 October 2004
Inclusionism, the opposite of deletionism, is a philosophy held by Wikipedians who favour amending probelematic articles over deleting them. Inclusionists also generally are less concerned with the question of notability, and instead focus on whether or not an article is factual.
If, for example, an article has some good content and some substandard content, the inclusionist will see the good content as reason to keep the article and, like eventualists, will have faith that the wiki process will improve the substandard content in time.
A favorite phrase of inclusionists is "Wiki is not paper". Because Wikipedia does not have the same space limitations as a paper encyclopedia, there is no need to restrict content in the same way that a Britannica has to. Inclusionists claim that authors should take a more open-minded look at content criteria. Articles on non-famous or unimportant people, places, and concepts may be acceptable in this view. Some do not see a problem with including a page which gives factual description of every last person.
From a deletionist viewpoint, inclusionists appear to be arguing for the value of material and information which is substandard. They claim that a couple of facts embedded in what is otherwise patent nonsense is enough for this group of people to defend the article's inclusion. Hardline deletionists have accused inclusionists of believing "in keeping everything that ever got vomited onto Wikipedia", or of having short attention spans caused by watching MTV. An inclusionist might reply that the latter is a silly and hypocritical argument, as they expect to be involved in articles' progress over an extended period of time, while deletionists would immediately lose interest if the article was deleted.
A straw man argument of deletionists against inclusionism is the claim that every inclusionist views absolutely anything as permissible, even patent nonsense such as an article called Acervose excellencies' mise containing the text of The Star Spangled Banner. Deletionists expect such an article to be speedily deleted, but an inclusionist would rather the article be fixed, possibly by moving its content to The Star Spangled Banner .
Extreme inclusionists will defend material that is off-topic or better suited to one of Wikipedia's sister projects. They might even maintain this defence when the content has been copied elsewhere. Just like deletionists, inclusionists have been known to maintain their position in the teeth of many opposing voices, or even attack people with opposing views. They accuse deletionists of being anti-wiki for not allowing the wiki process to work.
At a larger plane the difference between the inclusionists and the deletionists may be their view of what Wikipedia is. While typical deletionists and inclusionists have similar goals, inclusionists are in favor of keeping articles of uncertain value (which allows future improvement). Deletionists prefer to simply delete such articles (rendering the subject moot). Some inclusionists may see the project as a completely new and revolutionizing way of storing and organizing all human knowledge. Though many people would object to articles such as List of tennis players who have appeared on the David Letterman Show in 1995, extremists might strongly support such an article; indeed, they would be likely to add as much relevant information and as many links to other articles as possible.
Because of a perceived greater acceptance of trivialities, small articles, non-traditional topics, and non-academic articles, inclusionists may find themselves in opposition to those who hold stricter views about the proper content of an encyclopedia. Inclusionists may feel such critics are simply suffering from the academic standards kick.
Inclusionism parallels eventualism and the legal standard of presumption of innocence, while deletionism has a lot in common with immediatism and the Napoleonic code. As always, the dangers of factionalism should be noted, as should the likelihood that many Wikipedians are neither exclusively inclusionist nor deletionist.
There is a formal organization for inclusionists, the AIW. Membership in the AIW requires only adding your name to the list of members at the association's page. The association is led by an elected General Secretary, whose primary role is as the voice of the association. The association exists to help further the goals of inclusionists, and it is hoped that organized inclusionist action will help accomplish those goals.
List of inclusionists
- User:Oliver Pereira
- en:User:Cimon avaro - just a fellow traveler :)
- Calmypal - I will have no qualms if someday, every word on Wikipedia is a link to a disambiguation page.
- SmartBee
- Floydian - The article never did anything to you, so why should you go and kill it?
- Anthony DiPierro - hey, how'd you know I was a Taurus?
- Seth Ilys
- JackLynch 09:54, 28 Jan 2004 (UTC)
- Arj
- Sara Bickley (Sashal)
- Roachgod I'm a Libra.
- Lussmu - hardcore inclusionist
- Elian
- Kate
- Eequor
- Factitious
- Posiduck
- RaD Man(talk) Good to be here