User:Dcoetzee/The value of recentism

Recentism is a Wikipedia jargon term for a type of systemic bias where articles are edited to emphasize new topics without regard to long-term historical perspective, or new articles are created which inflate the importance of a topic that has only recently come to prominence. Wikipedia's ability to respond rapidly to change is one of its greatest virtues, but sometimes the result is such a wealth of information that it places undue weight on topics that, in the long run, do not deserve such disproportionate attention and detail.

However, the key here is in the long run: one of the fundamental Wikipedia philosophies is eventualism, the belief that the value of Wikipedia in the long-term is most important, even at the expense of its value in the short term. Few Wikipedians are pure eventualists, but nobody wants to take such drastic steps as deleting all stubs, or removing all unsourced information; the wiki process fundamentally relies on the ability of people distributed through space and time to collaborate in building a quality article.

An article bloated by recentism is like a brainstorming session: it's a place where many editors who are all — for the moment — greatly excited about the topic can rapidly gather information and sources to describe the topic in great detail. Whether the topic is an event recently passed or one that's ongoing, it's very difficult in the short term to determine which information will be most important for describing it in the long run, particularly while the topic has captured the emotions of the media and contributors alike. There is no deadline; once a few weeks or months have passed, and a semblance of historical perspective is achieved, the valuable data that has been accumulated can be pruned, summarized, and merged into its proper context.

If recentism is nipped in the bud — for example if a policy were to prohibit it — the result would not be as desired. Most content contributors are anonymous contributors who are not familiar with the rules, and they would continue to overwhelm the article with new information. Instead of spurning them, let us welcome their contributions of unrefined, raw information; and when they disappear, having moved on, process it and use it to build the encyclopedia. This is the wiki process at work.