On 30/03/07, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
On 3/30/07, Oldak Quill oldakquill@gmail.com wrote:
On 30/03/07, Michael Bimmler mbimmler@gmail.com wrote:
Maybe it's time to clarify briefly what the ultimate goal of the project "Wikipedia" is:
A. To write a encyclopedia (with the labels associates such as "quality", "accuracy" and "neutrality" B. To have a nice little community thing, where we have endless votes and discussions about the (inclusion of the) messed-up divorce of John Doe, biologist.
Wikipedia doesn't have constitutional or fundamental goals. We have certain goals which have primacy over others, but none can be described (or rejected) as our ultimate goal.
Well, maybe this is a language-specific issue, but in the german Wikipedia we have basically three principles (okay, actually 4, but the 4th deals with "No personal attacks"), which are called "unalterable", viz. "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia", "Neutrality" and "Free Content". These principles (imho, correct me if I am wrong here) supersede and overrule all other policies and guidelines.
Actually, I thought that http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines#Key_policies and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars were talking about the same kind of rules, but I may be wrong here. Still, it is my (humble and) personal opinion, that they should.
These principles, rules, pillars and limitations all serve to further our goals, but they are not goals themselves. Certainly not the "ultimate goals" Michael Bimmler was seeking to clarify.