Oldak Quill wrote:
On 21/01/07, Alphax (Wikipedia email)
<alphasigmax(a)gmail.com> wrote:
No, no, and just plain... no. "Process"
is what killed Nupedia. The OP
has our sincere thanks for removing another of our drive-by-stupidity
magnets. Seriously. Next thing you know [[
snopes.com]] or [[The Straight
Dope]] will have entire sections labelled "according to Wikipedia..."
where they debunk all of the unreferenced tripe that's lying around.
Just to clarify: Keeping to established processes when it comes to
contentious actions (deletion process, etc.) is important to ensuring
the project works day-to-day, flows well and reduces editor annoyance.
That's the main point. Keeping the article around for another week with
big warnings at the top would not have been harmful to anyone. The
value of the list was dubious to start with. People really interested
in this stuff would have been pushed to do some work if they wanted to
keep it. Processes that keep activities transparent tend to be the good
ones.
Having too much process (for example, when it is not
necessary) is not
good. It takes away from the ease and enjoyability of volunteering for
Wikipedia. More importantly, it stops users taking spontaneous
decisions which are usually beneficial to the project (I, for one, am
less likely to do something if there are lots of hoops to jump
through.)
Here too I agree, especially when those processes require that people
sift through a lot of picky details.
Ec