There already is such a distinction. Policy is non-negotiable (while
it can be changed by site-wide community debate), guidelines are
"optional", but often still a good idea to follow.
Mgm
On 11/17/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden(a)yahoo.ie> wrote:
I've been looking at some pages and noticed that
there is a haphazard application of rules on WP, specifically a failure to distinguish
between mandatory and optional rules.
(a). The APPLICATION of 'mandatory' rules in INDIVIDUAL PAGES should never be a
subject for a vote.
(b). The ADOPTION of a 'mandatory' rule for Wikipedia en block should be on
POLICY PAGES.
3. The APPLICATION and ADOPTION of 'optional' rules in INDIVIDUAL CASES and on
POLICY PAGES should be capable of being voted on.
I've come across a couple of pages tonight where notes decided that in some articles
mandatory rules shouldn't be applied (usually on naming). So you find that 99 articles
may follow one naming system, and one doesn't even though the MoS says it has to,
because users on a page decided not to.
WP needs to spell out clearly the difference in weighing between different types of
rules, and so let everyone know what is a 'must' and what is a 'may'.
A classic example is one vote where over twenty users have voted to put a page at the
location that is contrary to MoS policy. Arguments ranged from
* well I like that name
* well I always use it
* I personally haven't heard any other name used
* the Government wants it
* it will eventually become widespread
* I hope it eventually becomes widespread
* I think it will eventually become widespread
* we should be encourging it to become widespread
* I think the old name is colonial
and a lot of others.
None of those are criteria recognised in the Manual of Style, which sets the simple
criteria 'the most common name used in English', not 'the most common name
likely to be used in the future', 'the name we would like to use', or 'the
name the government tells us to use' but simply the most common name in use as of
now.
Yet by using criteria that clash with a mandatory rule, a page is put in a different
location to hundreds of thousands of others.
One second issue: if we require 'most commonly used name in English' (or in
whatever language in another Wikipedia) we need to be able to define an independent,
verifiable, objective methodology for establishing what is the most commonly used name in
English. A whole host of pages tonight had debates based on the 'well that's how I
know him/her/it as' with no form of verification. Straight google searches are
worthless because they link to accurate sites and inaccurate ones and other language sites
still crop up in English searches if linked to English sites. (An example: last year
someone put a dummy page on WP. I deleted it. It was complete fiction. But by then that
page had been copied under licence. Now there are over eighty sites on the net that refer
to a fact that someone completely made up on WP. The topic is an area i know a lot about.
One read of it showed that it was a joke, not real, done obviously by someone who knew a
lot about the topic and wanted to see if th
ey could
'create' a 'fact' that didn't exist.)
We need a clearly defined criteria for sources for establishing 'most common
name':
Media is key to finding 'most common name' because as they need to communicate
to millions they will tend to use terminology they know their listeners/viewers will
understand.
Obvious sources are
* media usage in the large English-speaking countries on EACH continent
* Broadcast usage and print usage
* academic usage
* hardcopy published usage
* informal governmental usage
In terms of media, for example, that would mean checking BBC, New York Times, The
Australian, Reuters, APTV, ITN (the real one, not ours!), South African television and
print usage, Canadian tv and print usage, Indian TV and print usage, informal governmental
usage in speeches, etc.
Formal-legal and diplomatic terminology in contrast is not guaranteed to be mass used
(indeed rarely is. How many people say French Republic for France or Poblacht na hÉireann
for Ireland in real life?) and so may not help us find 'most common name'.
If we don't sort out the mandatory from optional rules, and restrict votes to
decision making on the latter, and Wikipedia-wide policy making on the former, then it
will cause all sorts of problems as Wikipedia becomes larger. In every encyclopædia for
practical organisational purposes the Manual of Style is a mandatory requirement which no
editor can breach. (If they try they get the sack.) It is bad enough finding a handful of
pages that are the odd ones out and are in effect 'Manual of Style'-free zones.
But the more there are, the more people can then say 'well if THEY can ignore the MoS
on THEIR page, why can't WE? A professional credible encyclopædia cannot be organised
on the basis of everyone on each page making up their own rules. We created the Manual of
Style and put enormous work into creating Naming Conventions directly to avoid such
confusion and ensure maximum cross-article standards of clarity and comparibility.
Thom
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