[WikiEN-l] dueling templates

[Bryan Derksen]

David Goodman wrote:
> That's not the best solution at all. The best solution is to remove
> the real trivia entirely, and rewrite the cultural references in an
> encyclopedic way. That takes work, of course, but then writing an
> encyclopedia takes work; deleting large amounts from many articles
> based on superficial inspection without attempting to improve content
> is much easier.

"Rewrite all trivia-section-containing articles so that they are both
inclusive of information and well-written prose" is of course the
_ideal_ approach, but IMO not a practical solution to the immediate
problem. There are too many people out there who want Wikipedia to look
nice _right now_, and so will jump to the quick-fix deletion approach.
Since simply telling them "no, you can't delete that, it's raw material
that will be useful later" would result in major strife and the risk
that it might get deleted anyway, I prefer a more harmonious solution.

> As a way to resolve such differences in basic outlook, a two-level
> solution would work, though l think it would produce enough other
> problems to be unworkable. Those doubting can take a look a the
> difficulties Citizendium is having with that approach, and the very
> slow progress they are consequently making.

Citizendium's approach is different, and IMO significantly flawed. It
hinges on OWNership and on an elitist approach that makes certain
editors "gatekeepers" of article content. Contrast with Wikipedia's
"featured article" process, which is a delightfully democratic mess of
opinions. Citizendium also has some other unrelated issues that are IMO
causing it major trouble. The licencing chaos they went through, for
example.

A very important aspect that needs to be in stable versions, IMO, is the
ability to ignore the system completely if one wants to. The first thing
I plan to do when the feature is enabled is to set my preferences so
that I always see the most recent version, not just the most recent
stable version; I want to work at the raw coal face of Wikipedia, for me
stable versions is just a fence around the worksite to get people to
stop "helpfully" filling in the hole I'm trying to dig.

I'd actually like to see that as the default but I suspect that's not as
likely. I'll take whatever stable versions I can get at this point. :)

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