[CQ-Contest] Time for a Contesting Wikipedia?

[Kenneth E. Harker]

     Wikipedia has a concept of Notability.  For an article to exist in 
Wikipedia, there needs to be consensus or evidence that it is about a subject
that is notable.  An article about my cat would probably not meet the
requirements about notability, but an article about the Cheshire Cat from
Lewis Carroll's _Alice in Wonderland_ probably does, for example.  If you 
want to know all the gory details about Wikipedia policy on notability, 
start here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability

      So, Wikipedia can certainly support a main article about Contesting,
articles about certain other notable aspects of contesting (the World 
Radiosport Team Championships, for example) but it might be hard to justify 
a separate article about each commercial logging program or specialty hardware
product, or an article about the history of the CQ World Wide WPX contest, 
or an article on N5TJ's contesting career, etc...  If one were to start 
articles on those topics on Wikipedia, it would certainly attract 
contentious challenges.

     Also, Wikipedia, as a more public resource, is far more likely to 
attract vandalism by anti-contester bigots.  The Contesting article on 
Wikipedia has been the target of persistent vandalism by an individual or 
possible a group of disgruntled British (or at least using British 
Telecom IP addresses) hams in the past.


On Wed, Apr 01, 2009 at 12:42:39PM -0500, Joe wrote:
> ahh Need signature,,
> 
> Joe Mayenschein  WB9SBD
> 
> Joe wrote:
> 
> > Why can you not go into details?
> >
> > Pete Smith wrote:
> >
> >>Tod, I think the problem with Wikipedia is, as some one else said, that its 
> >>managers won't allow it to go into the kind of detail that contesters want 
> >>and need.  What is appropriate for a general purpose encyclopedia, however 
> >>expansive, does not begin to meet the need that I'm suggesting exists.
> >>
> >>73, Pete N4ZR
> >>
> >>At 10:12 AM 4/1/2009, Tod -ID wrote:
> >>  
> >>
> >>>I checked Wikipedia. There is an extensive section on Amateur Radio
> >>>Contesting already in place.
> >>>
> >>>Why not just expand that section to contain the information that people
> >>>believe should be included. The structure is already set up, the procedures
> >>>are known and the location is familiar to folks who are looking for
> >>>information about a topic.
> >>>
> >>>Life is pretty short so spending as little "life time" as possible creating
> >>>infrastructure that is already in place seems sensible. We should spend the
> >>>energy creating content instead.
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>Tod, K0TO
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
> >>>    
> >>>
> >>>>-----Original Message-----
> >>>>From: cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com
> >>>>[mailto:cq-contest-bounces at contesting.com] On Behalf Of Doug Smith
> >>>>Sent: Tuesday, March 31, 2009 10:35 PM
> >>>>To: K0HB; cq-contest at contesting.com
> >>>>Subject: Re: [CQ-Contest] Time for a Contesting Wikipedia?
> >>>>
> >>>>K0HB wrote:
> >>>>      
> >>>>
> >>>>>I think an "independent" knowledge base like that would be
> >>>>>        
> >>>>>
> >>>>a wonderful
> >>>>      
> >>>>
> >>>>>resource, but a very ambitious project to build, and would
> >>>>>        
> >>>>>
> >>>>require a
> >>>>      
> >>>>
> >>>>>significant ongoing "maintenance" effort to remain current.
> >>>>>        
> >>>>>
> >>>>The point of a wiki is to spread the maintenance effort among
> >>>>a large group of people.
> >>>>
> >>>>--
> >>>>
> >>>>Doug Smith W9WI
> >>>>Pleasant View, TN  EM66
> >>>>_______________________________________________
> >>>>CQ-Contest mailing list
> >>>>CQ-Contest at contesting.com
> >>>>http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
> >>>>      
> >>>>
> >>>_______________________________________________
> >>>CQ-Contest mailing list
> >>>CQ-Contest at contesting.com
> >>>http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
> >>>    
> >>>
> >>
> >>_______________________________________________
> >>CQ-Contest mailing list
> >>CQ-Contest at contesting.com
> >>http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/cq-contest
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>  
> >>
> _______________________________________________
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> CQ-Contest at contesting.com
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-- 
Kenneth E. Harker WM5R
kenharker at kenharker.com
http://www.kenharker.com/