ARE YOU AN INCLUSIONIST OR A DELETIONIST?

Are you an inclusionist or a deletionist?

Are you an inclusionist or a deletionist?

Introduction

The rules that govern how the popular online encyclopedia works are set by its community of contributors - the so-called wikipedians - through a process of argument and consensus-building. But the community has begun to split into two warring camps with contrary philosophies about Wikipedia's identity and purpose. On one side are the deletionists; on the other are the inclusionists. Between them is not a middle ground but a no-man's-land. As one Wikipedia observer recently put it, "The inclusionist versus deletionist debate is as firm and strong as the abortion debate, gun control debate, or the death penalty debate." (Jason, 2006, 54)

Are you an inclusionist or a deletionist?

The adherents of inclusionism believe that there should be no constraints on the breadth of the encyclopedia - that Wikipedia should include any entry that any contributor wants to submit. An article on a small-town elementary school is no less worthy for inclusion than an article on Stanford University. The supporters of deletionism, in contrast, believe in weeding out entries that they view as trivial or otherwise inappropriate for a serious encyclopedia. Here's how the encyclopedia itself describes the two camps: (Jason, 2006, 54)

There is an Association of Inclusionist Wikipedians, with 207 members at the moment. (Brock, 2007, 88) Their slogan is "Wikipedia is not paper." Because there are no physical constraints on the encyclopedia's size, they see no reason to limit the number of entries. Let's focus on making each entry as good as possible, they say, not on picking which entries should stay and which should be deleted. There is as well an Association of Deletionist Wikipedians, currently with 144 members. They have a slogan of their own: "Wikipedia is not a ...