From: Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com
On 7/3/05, JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
Wikipedia is about creating an encyclopedia, not promulgating an
ideology.
I agree with your point about not focusing on admins, although I think that end is best served by making many people admins as it dillutes any unintended power of adminship.
I agree with this to an extent as well. I just (continually argue) that 500 existing admins, with hundreds more coming on board each year, effectively does that, moreso than in any other online community I have heard of.
There were already a number of good encyclopedias before Wikipedia came about. You can not separate Wikipedia the encyclopedia from Wikipedia the ideology. I do not think this is a bad idea.
Even as a non-editor you can not be completely ignorant of the Wikipedia ideology if you are to effectively use our resources, since the results of vandalism and POV pushers will always end up visible once in a while and because the inner workings of the project are so useful by themselves (it's very handy to have some ability to ask questions of the person who wrote the text you are reading).
There are lots of great things about the ideology, which are useful in creating a great encyclopedia. There are also inherent problems with the ideology, which mitigate against that (particularly the issue of assuring high standards, which we are struggling with). To the extent that the promoting ideology supports the goal, I'm all for it. In areas where promoting the ideology works against supporting the goal, I think the latter must take priority.
Jay.