User:Matt Deres/RefDesk

Entertainment Desk

I'm going to use this space to explain why I feel that the Entertainment Desk should be removed from the RefDesks and allowed to merge back into the other desks (primarily Humanities, but also Computers and Misc).

Lack of Eyeballs

The nub of the problem is that lack of popularity for a desk is a vicious cycle. The entertainment desk gets fewer questions (and replies) than any other desk and by a large margin. I don't think anyone is debating that. Fewer questions leads to fewer people bothering to check it, which leads to less substantial answers which leads to people asking their questions on another desk. Round and round we go.

This lack of eyeballs would be a major problem for any desk, but may in fact be even more troublesome at the Ent. desk. I don't have a reference to back it up, but it seems to me that, other than perhaps the Math and Computing Desks, Ent is the desk where people most want a very specific answer to a very specific question. If I want to know who played Dracula in a particular commercial or who played banjo in some band, those are questions that have no half-answers - you either know or don't know. In contrast, a question about history will often allow for multiple avenues of attack; a question about science may allow for similar papers or theories to be recalled.

These specificity-laden Ent. questions require someone who knows a particular answer, not someone who has a general understanding of a topic. To state it broadly, my knowledge of archaeology would allow me to make reasonable work of any archaeology questions, even if I hadn't studied the particular topic at hand; I could research the question and be better able to interpret the answer than most lay people. On the other hand, my knowledge of Led Zeppelin and The Beatles would do no good when attempting to answer a question about The Who.

Now let's look at the other extreme - Math and Computing. They also require specific answers. Why aren't I in favour of removing them? Those disciplines tend to pose questions that require someone with a great deal of prior knowledge. A question about C++ can often only be answered by someone who is extremely well-versed in it, so showing the question to more eyeballs would do no good, because only a relatively small subset of eyeballs sit in front a brain able to answer the question intelligently.

So on the one hand, Ent. questions require more eyeballs, while on the other hand, you don't need to have worked in the field for a decade just to understand the question. Anyone passing through might happen to know that one little nugget of information the OP is looking for. The OP is looking for a specific answer while any person reading might happen to be the perfect respondent. Clearly that arrangement is best met by allowing Ent. questions to get wide exposure (i.e. get placed on desks that get more traffic, like Humanities and Misc.

I would also like to point out that users already avoid the Ent. ghetto and put their questions wherever else they might fit. Today is August 21, 2009 and the Humanities desk has questions on cartoons (Aug 16th), TV stations (Aug 17), and novels (Aug 19) while the Misc desk has questions on popular songs (Aug 15), horror movies (Aug 16), and graffiti and cricket (Aug 21).

Objections Against

It has been said that Ent. questions were out of place on the Humanities desk due to their being merely "popular" and not "highbrow" enough to warrant being with the utterly serious questions on the Hum. desk.

This is a completely hollow argument; WP has articles on headless chickens, Family Guy, and the Renaissance. We have featured articles on TV shows, porn stars, and complex scientific concepts. It is completely against the spirit of WP to pretend there is some great cultural divide between high and low culture.

Hopefully even more importantly, the issue should come down to how well we are serving the users. Right now we have a problem and doing nothing has not fixed it. Removing the Ent. ghetto is a reasonable attempt at a solution.