Wikipedia Camping Guide: When is a Camping Worth an Entry?

On: October 17, 2008
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About Bram Nijhof
Bram Nijhof is a master student of New Media at the University of Amsterdam. He has a bachelor degree in Art & Technology and a bachelor degree in Media & Culture with an expertise in New Media.

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http://www.bramnijhof.nl    

When I was choosing to make a new Wikipedia entry for the course I chose a local topic on the Dutch Wikipedia, because there was more chance that it don’t exist. I chose to write about ‘camping Bakkum’, a camping in the Netherlands in my place of birth. When beginning to make the entry Wikipedia said that there was already an entry on ‘camping Bakkum’, but it was removed. The reason for that is that Wikpedia doesn’t want to be a camping guide. Because it was removed, then it was quite a challenge to make an entry that will survive. I thought that if I put some facts about the camping, maybe it has more value than just promoting the camping.

When researching on the internet I found that the camping was the oldest camping in the Netherlands. Also there have been some documentaries about citizens of Amsterdam who visit the camping each year. On the internet there was also information that called the camping ‘Amsterdam at the sea’. I added this information and I added information about the environment. When the entry was online the information over the environment was deleted to prevent promotional attention. I agreed with that. Also other facts where added by other people.

After a few weeks the article is still online. My questions are: if Wikipedia doesn’t want to be a camping guide, is this camping still online because of the facts I added? Has the entry value because of the fact that the camping is the oldest camping? Or is the relationship between Amsterdam and camping Bakkum an important notion for not removing the article let it stay in the Wikipedia encyclopedia? What is the line between an article in a camping guide and an article in an encyclopedia?

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