Because we can never know if something done in wikipedia is done right
or done wrong on the on the basis of it being 'done', you are not at
all excused from arguing your position from first principles... Just
as you would be with no examples to support you.
So while examples can be useful for clarities sake, they often cause
confusion about your argument... And as such they should be avoided.
In any case no specific examples were cited here, rather it was
asserted that something was being done wrong on the basis of there
being many counter examples. I was only pointing out that that
particular method of argument isn't likely to be too useful.
We've seen arguments in this thread that GNAA ought to have been kept
which are worth consideration, but "there are lots of examples in pop
culture" just isn't one of them.
On 11/29/06, Bryan Derksen <bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:
Gregory Maxwell wrote:
Wikipedia isn't consistent.. We shouldn't
let the fact the thousands
of things are done wrong be an excuse for doing things incorrectly.
You are presupposing that counterexamples are inherently examples of
things "done wrong." The problem is that this is far from obvious in
many cases. One can't dismiss the issue so easily.
We accept open submission so if we allow the
existance of examples in
wikipedia to drive our standards we will, in effect, have no
standards. I'm sure that would make some people, people editing for
their own self-interests, happy but it would not be good.
Hey now, assume good faith. It's not just people who are editing "for
their own self-interests" that prefer as inclusive a set of standards as
possible under our policies.