DP:Background

From Deletopedia

Deletopedia is inspired by (and takes its name from) an article, "How I fell in love with Wikipedia" by Nicholson Baker. The original, full length, article was published in the New York Review of Books under the title The Charms of Wikipedia.

Baker's article describes his personal obsession with Wikipedia, and muses on a number of topics. Baker then talks about the deletion of pages by administrators, especially those deemed "Not Notable", and laments the loss of much interesting, if obscure content. The essay finishes:

But I have a secret hope. Someone recently proposed a Wikimorgue—a bin of broken dreams where all rejects could still be read, as long as they weren't libelous or otherwise illegal. Like other middens, it would have much to tell us over time. We could call it the Deletopedia.

The someone who proposed a Wikimorgue was K.G. Schneider in her CIO.com article Wikipedia's Awkward Adolescence:

Another step Wikipedia could take would be to borrow from Wikiscan and similar websites, and create a shadow Wikipedia—or Wikimorgue—composed of all deleted articles. (A commenter also facetiously suggested this idea on Carr's blog, Rough Type.) A Wikimorgue could be a small but powerful check on Wikipedia's editors, who might think twice about deleting articles if they knew that by routine practice and internal policy, Wikipedia preserved all deleted pages, including their histories and discussions.

I think Wikipedia is great, but I also think it is limited by elitist editors who interpret the notability rules too strictly, and err on the side of deletion, rather than giving articles a chance to develop. I'm a natural "inclusionist", and I think most people are. Wikipedia is where it is because it includes the kind of obscure content that a traditional encyclopaedia would never bother with.