User:Draeco/Philosophy

Wikipedia should include any article that covers a real subject. Because Wikipedia is not a paper encyclopedia, there should be no limit to the number of articles that it can contain. The main practical limit is financial, but storage is relatively cheap and getting cheaper. To be the ultimate encyclopedia, Wikipedia should freely include articles on any verifiable topic. This includes garage bands, high school clubs, startup websites, and a panoply of other much-maligned "nn cruft" that WP:AFD chews through on a daily basis. Only nonsense and totally worthless vandalism or spam should be deleted.

Wikipedia should require registration before editing in order to counter vandalism. Wikipedia should continue allowing anyone to edit (it's a foundational principle), just first require that they register an account. In my experience, a majority of blatant vandalism is done by anonymous IP users. Account registration will discourage many casual vandals and will make them easier to track and block. Registration could only entail creating a username and password. This is by no means onerous for internet users who have come to expect at least that much at other sites with "free" access.

Wikipedia should have ads. It costs a significant sum of money to run and maintain Wikipedia and its 2,406,725 articles. Relying solely on the generosity of donors is unpredictable, not self-sufficient, and ultimately unsustainable. To support itself, Wikipedia should offer a small adspace in the lower left-hand corner of every page below the toolbox. The ad could be very unobtrusive and still draw in tremendous revenue because Wikipedia could demand a steep price since it's one of the top-20 websites worldwide according to Alexa's traffic rankings.