User talk:Kombucha

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[edit] Kombucha's Talk Page

Say whatever you want to me here, although I'd rather not be flamed, if you can resist the temptation.

To ensure that I (and others) can clearly follow the progress of this page, please do the following:

• Sign all comments. If you have no account, I suggest you either get one, or sign your comment with something to identify you.
• Create new headers when starting a conversation on a new subject. (Type two equals signs (==) followed by the name of the heading, then two equals signs again.)
• Create new posts/subjects below the older ones.

[edit] Welcome

Welcome!

Hello, Kombucha, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few good links for newcomers:

• The five pillars of Wikipedia
• How to edit a page
• Help pages
• Tutorial
• How to write a great article
• Manual of Style

I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian! Please sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Where to ask a question, ask me on my talk page, or place {{helpme}} on your talk page and someone will show up shortly to answer your questions. Again, welcome!  Friday (talk) 15:45, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for starting this talk page, and thank you for your advice. Although I have not written any articles, or done any major editing for Wikipedia before the Honour and Justice article, I have edited small mistakes, both in content and spelling/grammar before. I have also read a great deal of articles, so I am not entirely new to Wikipedia.

I hope to write an article that there is less disagreement over in the near future. I simply need to find something that I know about that hasn't already been written about. That, I must say, is not very easy! --Kombucha 21:24, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Good luck, and don't feel bad if the article gets redirected or deleted. It happens all the time. Friday (talk) 01:45, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sources

I wasn't implying that what you wrote is inaccurate. See reliable sources and verifiability, these are key policies- part of what makes Wikipedia an encyclopedia rather than a publisher of original work. Friday (talk) 02:14, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I understand. How would you recommend improving the article?

Note: I will ask this again in the Honour and Justice AfD discussion so that others may see your responce and respond to my question themselves if they wish. Kombucha 02:21, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

With a subject like this, I doubt we can have much verifiability. This is part of the reason people consider the subject not very encyclopedic. Friday (talk) 05:23, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

Can you not at least see my viewpoint that, if information is correct, it is better to have it here than not have it, assuming the information is not just a biography on someone who has absolutely no fame etc? Even is this article doesn't apply to many people, it is not just a load of rubbish.Kombucha 16:06, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

I believe I understand where you're coming from. There are a few editors whose rule of thumb seems to be "if it exists, let's have as much information about it as possible in Wikipedia." Most editors want some level of significance, though, and believe that more details are not always better. It's really a judgement call. IMO, WP:V and related policies explain why it would be impossible to be indiscriminate with what we include and still be an encyclopedia.

That's all theory, though. On a more practical note, in my experience the "cruftier" the article is, the harder it is to keep unverifiable junk out of it. We see this frequently- for example, universities have articles, which is perfectly reasonable. Sometimes people get it in their heads to create an article about an individual dorm, for example. These articles are typically low quality and they're a magnet for people to add things like "Room 402 is the coolest room in the building, because Bob lives there and he likes to party." Given the lack of usefulness and the (IMO inappropriately high) level of detail in such articles, their existance does the project more harm than good. If there's something important to be said about the dorm, say it in the main university article.

Anyway, people have been disagreeing over these kinds of issues the whole time Wikipedia has been around, from what I can tell. My opinion (which I believe is shared by a significant portion of editors) is basically that if a topic isn't "important" enough to be discussed in multiple reliable sources, it should probably not be included in the encyclopedia. Friday (talk) 16:18, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

PS. a better link to explain "cruft" is probably Wikipedia:Cruft. Friday (talk) 16:19, 23 February 2006 (UTC)