dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote:
From: Timwi timwi@gmx.net We promise that you can "edit this page," not "create an article." The policy is "zero-threshold editing," not "zero-threshold article creation.'
This is just hair-splitting. Just because we've never mentioned page creation in any sort of "promise", doesn't mean we should stop offering it.
We should stop offering it because IMHO a very small threshold for creating an article--such as creating a free, anonymous account--would be more helpful to our goal of building "a free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" than a zero threshold for creating an article.
We have already established elsewhere in this thread that you're wrong. A number of good and useful contributions are made by non-logged-in people. Experience shows that if we require them to register, they just won't, hence we lose out on those contributions. Therefore, erecting a barrier to article creation, no matter how small, is NOT "helpful to our goal of building an encyclopedia".
And my point is that we would not breaking any explicit or implied promise by so doing.
Which, as I mentioned, is not a reasosn for doing it.
I heard Grace Hopper talk once, and she said "I am going to give you a gift. For the rest of the life, every time you say the words 'because we have always done it that way,' my ghost will appear and haunt you for twenty-four hours.'"
This is the fallacy fallacy, or argument by fallacy. Just because "we've always done it that way" is a fallacious argument, doesn't mean it's wrong to continue doing something as before.
Timwi