On 6/26/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/25/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The issue of editors who don't have a clue about the topic can be a problem, but one which is distinct from having no clue about the project. The risk here is for a project to so protect its way of doing things that it becomes authoritarian. While we cannot accept every piece of idiocy that is added to an article, we still need to make room for new ideas, and, even more importantly, newcomers need to feel welcome and a part of the decision making process.
This is much in accordance with what I am inadequately expressing. A couple of times here people have used "assume good faith" not in cause of civility, but in what amounts to making statements about human nature. In that wise we cannot afford it; a more realistic level of pessimism is called for.
"The risk here is for a project to so protect its way of doing things that it becomes authoritarian. "
This seems to be a problem with some projects and not others. With the botanists any article is more likely to be torpedoes from within due to the non-authoritarian nature of the project, or lack of accord among members on fundamental issues. I don't think this is really a problem so much as it is a reflection of the science and the exciting times we live in as botanists today.
I've run into a couple of projects where the editors are locked into their way of doing things, even when it is not WP:MOS (and to the detriment of the reader), or not particularly useful.
Again, botany sets its own MOS, bu that is due to the problems mentioned in the first paragraph.
I still find it much more useful to ask someone knowledgable on a topic about an article's overall relevancy to Wikipedia, than to use google or something to find information about which I know nought--again, it removes some of the potential for idiocy (AfD:Rock climbing). It seems strange to start with the presumption of bad faith from those who know a topic. I don't want junkie plant articles on Wikipedia--and we're very short-handed in this area. What's so difficult about asking the plant folks if an article belongs or not? (I don't think I've ever seen a plant article up for deletion, though--everyone knows animals, not plants.)
KP