Wikipedia:Avoid Parkinson's bicycle-shed effect

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Wikipedia:Avoid Parkinson's Bicycle Shed Effect
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encyclopedia
to go with it.

In his 1957 book Parkinson's Law, or the Pursuit of Progress,

bicycle shed effect
" is easily explained: true expertise on nuclear plants is rare, while everybody can have a say about bicycle sheds, and refreshments are clear and dear to all.

Sadly, the "bicycle shed effect" can be noted on Wikipedia.

resolving disputes
, or commenting on policy issues, or playing politics. These areas should be seen as the "bicycle shed", whilst the encyclopedia should be seen as "Nuclear safety".

In articles, this problem manifests itself in the way an article covers the topic. Sometimes articles fail to stick to the main article topic, discussing minor and tangential aspects of the topic, such as usages in popular culture, a list of examples, etc. This soon becomes the focus of the article. It is expected that articles be

neutral manner
, focusing on presenting the description and application of the topic as the main bulk of the article.

As a tangential issue, most articles that are of a reasonable standard will re-use many of the

templates that are available, that can save time in presenting a consistent and well-formatted layout. However, the typical reader of the encyclopedia will only accept good formatting up to a point, providing they can access the information they're looking for. So don't spend too much time debating the structure of templates in the article. In particular, taken to extreme, this can involve edit-warring over the colour of templates
, which is just silly.

Perhaps the biggest offender for the "bicycle shed" is the

Administrator's Noticeboard
. While it plays an important part in defusing difficult situations and keeping discussions on track, it also has a tendency to attract drama like honey attracts bears. If you spend a lot of time at these noticeboards, and commenting on every situation, you might get the impression that Wikipedia is a very disruptive place. Go and find an unloved article, and improve it, however, and you may discover that that's actually far from the case.

See also