On Tue, 2002-10-01 at 01:48, Daniel Mayer wrote:
But they are /not/ encyclopedia articles, or even
talk pages for that
matter.
Therefore normal rules of editing do not really
apply.
At the very least there needs to be boilerplate on those pages mentioning
that they are policy/guidelines/conventions/style guides/rules to consider
etc. and also have statements indicating how each page type should be
edited;
policy of course can't be changed by fiat;
neither can conventions
(although
there should be a bit more wiggle-room here),
style guides are somewhat
open
to unilateral change (although you should expect
protests and reverts)
and of
course rules to consider can be edited fairly
liberally.
These ideas represent exactly the kind of stultification and
bureaucratization I fear.
To be less vaguely disapproving, I'll say that the fewer rules there
are, the better. And the fewer rules about the rules, even better.
It is *crucial* to recognize that by comparison to the number of
Wikipedians in the future, the collective number of participants on this
mailing list is effectively equivalent to a single person. So policies
that are hashed out on the mailing list right now are little better than
ones done "unilaterally" or "by fiat".
No. It's open to anyone who wants to be here, and if people use
informative subject lines, someone can choose to read only the
policy-related messages.
Can you really not see the difference between something one person
does, and something a few dozen discuss?
--
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr(a)redbird.org