Deletionism and Inclusionism in Wikipedia

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Description

From the Wikipedia:

"Deletionism and inclusionism are opposing philosophies that largely developed and came to public notice within the context of the community of editors of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia. The terms are connected to views on the appropriate scope of the encyclopedia, and the appropriate point for a topic to be allowed to "include" an encyclopedia article (i.e., "inclusion") or "delete" the article (i.e., "deletion").[1] Inclusionism and deletionism are broad terms falling within a spectrum of views. The concepts are closely related to Wikipedia's concept of notability, with deletionists and inclusionists taking a strong or relaxed stance on "notability" accordingly. Many users do not identify strongly with either position.

"Deletionists" are proponents of selective coverage and removal of articles seen as unnecessary or highly substandard. Deletionist viewpoints are commonly motivated by a desire that Wikipedia be focused on and cover significant topics – along with the desire to place a firm cap upon proliferation of promotional use (seen as abuse of the website), trivia, and articles which are of no general[when defined as?] interest, lack suitable source material for high quality coverage, or are too short or otherwise unacceptably poor in quality.

"Inclusionists" are proponents of broad retention, including retention of "harmless" articles and articles otherwise deemed substandard to allow for future improvement. Inclusionist viewpoints are commonly motivated by a desire to keep Wikipedia broad in coverage with a much lower entry barrier for topics covered – along with the belief that it is impossible to tell what knowledge might be "useful" or productive, that content often starts poor and is improved if time is allowed, that there is effectively no incremental cost of coverage, that arbitrary lines in the sand are unhelpful and may prove divisive, and that goodwill requires avoiding arbitrary deletion of others' work. Some extend this to include allowing a wider range of sources such as notable blogs and other websites.

To the extent that an official stance exists at 2010, it is that "There is no practical limit to the number of topics it can cover" but "there is an important distinction between what can be done, and what should be done", the latter being the subject of the policy "What Wikipedia is not". The policy concludes "Consequently, this policy is not a free pass for inclusion" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletionism_and_inclusionism_in_Wikipedia)