On 6 February 2013 15:14, Fred Bauder <[email protected]> wrote:
> However, we do need a mechanism for weeding out information which is no > longer of interest to readers or editors. Perhaps this could be one > criteria justifying deletion, or perhaps some other form of archiving. We > could maintain an archive of deprecated subjects separate from the main > body of articles. Libraries do this, and call it weeding. There's a reasonable point in here. We have a quite weak grasp of the (absolute) concept of "salience" of information relative to a topic, probably because a relative form - disproportionate coverage of an aspect - is more eye-catching. We only really want salient information in an article. and the thesis that salience or its perception begins to look tenable. At the gossip-column extreme the salience of information can look very perishable (cf. Pippa Middleton). We don't really have a concept of salience to match the historians, not that (I imagine) they have a consensus view, thus making history more interesting than reference material. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
