Wikipedia:Me too!

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Annoying Wikipedia Things #27.

Let's say there is a perfectly good article, which includes pictures, examples, facts, quotations, and so on. Along comes an enthusiastic Wikipedian who thinks, "yes, I know another example", "I have another factoid", "I have another picture of this", "I know the latest breaking news, plans, and speculation", or simply "I can get away with this here because other stuff exists". And they add it, often prefixed with "also" as if to emphasize or salve the supercool burn of its just-in-time novelty. After all, Wikipedia isn't just any wiki; it's the super wiki. A wiki is user-generated content, which means it's all about accumulating information—and this one's about straight wisdom. The people have a right to know the truth, and it's every conscientious editor's duty to deliver it. You're welcome.

And before you know it, you have an article containing 73 images of variable quality and no unique merit, 102 examples, 95 quotations, 77 "also"s, 133 popular culture references, 901 similar products from unknown SourceForge communities, and so on, to the point that the actual article which all this stuff was supposed to be illustrating, is lost in the sea of "me too!" edits.

The moral is this: with examples and other illustrative material, less can often be more. Focus on finding the best image, example, quotation or whatever, rather than adding as many as you can think of in the hope that one of them will work for some reader. WikiGnomes shall be aware of the need for de-also-ification.