An important reason to put some effort into this section is that people at the search engines will be searching on current events stories. Probably a very significant percentage of searches on Yahoo, Google, etc., on any given day, are on topics that are big at the moment. If we make an effort of adding relevent links to the
Current events page, and then make an effort to create good articles for whatever that page is linking to, we will be able to get lots of traffic from the search engines. We will also establish a reputation for being a place where people can come to find information on stuff that is happening right now.
So be bold in adding new topics to Current events, and feel free to improve the organization of the page.
- Tim
Do we really need this ? This is an encyclopedia not a tabloid after all. The
point about search engine search is questionable. It would be best to put some
porn to attract audience to Wikipedia. Huh ?
-- Kpjas
One great advantage Wikipedia might have over other encyclopedias is our ability to have timely articles. I think it is good strategy to focus efforts in those areas where we might have a competitive advantage. - Tim
Are we keeping them ? News become obsolete so quickly.
Besides, it is IMO pointless
to make empty links to news items !!!
-- Kpjas
The links to articles we don't have are there for two reasons. 1) People can add links to current events without having to know in advance whether we have an article. 2) People are encouraged to create articles for subjects we don't have, for the reasons stated on the main page.
And of course we are keeping the articles. I can't imagine why we wouldn't. What would be an example of a current events article that would not be worth keeping? - Tim
- Interest fades, importance diminishes ...
- Omaha beach took a tragic toll of lives. Do we think it proper to include the
- names in an encyclopedia?
- Encyclopedia is encyclopedia. There is even a page devoted to pointing out
- what wikipedia is not. Another one - it is not 'News of the World' like
- tabloid. Would you include rumours in an encyclopedia ???
- If someone thinks that some current event is worth making a link to it, he/she
- should write the article instead. Waiting for someone else to pick it up
- can eventually result in empty links to obsolete news items.
--Kpjas
Kpjas, there are many important topics that become important (sometimes, only temporarily)
because of their prominence as part of current events. This doesn't mean that we need to develop
news articles, per se. I hope we don't try to do that. Instead, we should develop encyclopedia articles--that, sometimes, actually concern breaking (i.e., newly developing) news. Again, we aren't trying to write
news articles, here, but
background articles necessary for a good understanding of the news.
The suggestion that, in offering encyclopedia articles about topics that have become important due to their importance in current events, Wikipedia is (or wants to be like) a tabloid, is absurd. --LMS
and, of course, the new and exciting 'holiday' category can be changed seasonally! --
MichaelTinkler, who was in a former life COMPELLED to create seasonally-changing bulletin boards.
I'm a believer in this page now. I checked it today and saw the link to the
Leonids, which are coming up this weekend. Yay!
<>< tbc
Y'know, if there were one or two other people working on this page daily, I would work on it daily too (or so I predict). What do you think? It's just not nearly as useful if it isn't updated daily. --
LMS
We should probably give up on daily updates. My latest idea on keeping
current events maximally useful given the present personnel is to generate lists of links relevant to Yahoo's list of
[Full Coverage] topics. If anyone's game, this would be a great service... --
LMS
- If there'd be a way to get just the big topics from some website automatically each day and append them to the current events as topics, it might motivate prople to write about such topics. --Magnus Manske
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