The Wikipedia Deletion Game

by Devanshu Mehta

Eszter Hargittai at Crooked Timber wonders about something I’ve been uncomfortable with about Wikipedia for a while now:

Currently, an entry for Joe the Plumber is being debated [for deletion]. Does it really dilute the value of Wikipedia to have entries like that? I remember when some people contested my entry (I wasn’t the one to put it up), it felt like some amateurish tenure review, except with not quite the same consequences. Would anyone care to defend the practice? I’m eager to understand the motivations better.