Wikipedia:Historic debates
This page is a short description of large-scale disputes that have occurred on Wikipedia and have shaped its evolution. The list is arranged in chronological order.
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Provide inline citations to evidence of the dispute, including: permalinks to talk pages/talk page archives, RfCs, RfARBs and archived mailing list posts.
Most major disputes involve one side arguing that something should stay in Wikipedia (or in some particular place in Wikipedia) while the other side holds that it should not. There participants are usually labeled either inclusionist or deletionist, depending on how restrictive they feel Wikipedia's inclusion criteria should be.
The main debates are over Notability, Censorship, Social networking, Administrator abuse, and/or Copyright disputes. See the notes for more explanation.[1]
Following is a brief overview of some of the more notable of these disputes.