On 3/30/07, Oldak Quill <oldakquill(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
On 30/03/07, Michael Bimmler
<mbimmler(a)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.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)