If there aren't any good third-party sources, I don't think there should be a Wikipedia article on the subject. What would it cite? How are we supposed to know it isn't just music fans writing stuff off the top of their head? The only reason Wikipedia articles are trustworthy at all is because they cite their sources, and I can follow up those citations and see what they say for myself. I have no reason to believe some random Wikipedia editor otherwise.
Overall, it's an encyclopedia with a (very) large but nonetheless delimited goal: summarizing the existing literature on as many subjects as there is existing literature. That is a lot of things, and it already seems almost absurdly ambitious to set out to summarize all of them, without trying to expand the scope further!
I also participate in projects with different goals, documenting things that aren't currently documented by existing literature. One of them is a music-related wiki project documenting an under-documented music scene. I think those kinds of projects are also worthwhile (or I wouldn't spend my time on them). But I don't see that as the same job as Wikipedia, which as a tertiary source should only be summarizing existing secondary literature, not doing its own independent investigations. I don't actually understand the motivation for why people want to merge this kind of wiki with Wikipedia, either, since it seems like a clearly different kind of activity, requiring different standards and probably a different community. Is it just that there is some cachet (whether SEO or just general prestige) to having a Wikipedia article, while there isn't the same cachet to having an article on a music-scene wiki?
I did write something [1] about the main problem area that results: stuff that is clearly notable, where you'd think sources should exist that Wikipedia could cite, but then when you look, there just isn't much solid written on the subject. This is indeed a pain point, but I'm not sure what could be done about it short of writing un-cited or very-poorly-cited articles, which I think is worse than not having an article. Not having an article is at least honest about Wikipedia's current inability to provide a well-sourced article on the subject.
> Is it just that there is some cachet (whether SEO or just general prestige) to having a Wikipedia article, while there isn't the same cachet to having an article on a music-scene wiki?
Yes. And that's exactly what's going on in the ICD case (assuming that TFA is honest). You've got a company trying to (ab)use Wikipedia for free PR, straightforwardly violating the very straightforward policies about autobiography, getting treated more-charitably than they deserve, and then resorting to legal threats when they don't get their way. What else can you say, except that Wikipedia has influence and people want to manipulate that influence for themselves?
Overall, it's an encyclopedia with a (very) large but nonetheless delimited goal: summarizing the existing literature on as many subjects as there is existing literature. That is a lot of things, and it already seems almost absurdly ambitious to set out to summarize all of them, without trying to expand the scope further!
I also participate in projects with different goals, documenting things that aren't currently documented by existing literature. One of them is a music-related wiki project documenting an under-documented music scene. I think those kinds of projects are also worthwhile (or I wouldn't spend my time on them). But I don't see that as the same job as Wikipedia, which as a tertiary source should only be summarizing existing secondary literature, not doing its own independent investigations. I don't actually understand the motivation for why people want to merge this kind of wiki with Wikipedia, either, since it seems like a clearly different kind of activity, requiring different standards and probably a different community. Is it just that there is some cachet (whether SEO or just general prestige) to having a Wikipedia article, while there isn't the same cachet to having an article on a music-scene wiki?
I did write something [1] about the main problem area that results: stuff that is clearly notable, where you'd think sources should exist that Wikipedia could cite, but then when you look, there just isn't much solid written on the subject. This is indeed a pain point, but I'm not sure what could be done about it short of writing un-cited or very-poorly-cited articles, which I think is worse than not having an article. Not having an article is at least honest about Wikipedia's current inability to provide a well-sourced article on the subject.
[1] http://www.kmjn.org/notes/wikipedia_notability_verifiability...