Surreptitiousness wrote:
Charles Matthews wrote:
I think that goes too far. I would argue that, yes, we have had to find a replacement for the editorial processes applied by EB and (for example) Nupedia.
But wasn't the wiki process supposed to be the editorial process?
If you mean the really-old-school pre-2001 wiki process, it was not so much a process as people raking a Zen garden, or water gently lapping at a sea-shore, or something. Anyway without any structure. Not what we would recognise, in fact.
If you mean the Wikipedia-before-beard-tugging process, I think this is one of those never-was-a-golden-age discussions. What we have had to find is some replacement for a ratchet in an inherently ratchet-free environment. Two steps forward and then one back is not really "serious" enough for a site with over 300 million readers. (Well, OK, not all reading enWP, but that's the ballpark.)
What we have not done is to prescribe these in advance of launching the project: we have allowed matters to develop their own way
But I think it is fair to say that there is resistance to changing the current status quo such that it could be argued that further evolution is unwelcome.
There is always now frictional resistance to change, quite true.
For way of example, a fairly recent discussion suggested [[WP:PLOT]] lacked the consensus required to remain a policy. However, a handful of editors refused attempts to remove it. This doesn't support the view that matters are allowed to develop, but rather supports the view that there are gate keepers. Incidentally, I've been informed on three policy pages recently that gate keepers are actually part of the wiki process, and that our policies should have established gate keepers as they will best understand which changes will be in keeping with the general thrust of the policy they undertake to gate keep.
"We have already decided that" is no part of any wiki process. Aiming to be consistent over multifarious bits of Wikipedia is part of our way of doing things. Obviously there is a tension.
But the complaint that there is some sort of editorial process, and that submissions should still be on a "no one needs to read the instructions" basis (no drafting, in particular), is a basic misunderstanding.
I don't think it is, I really do not. I think there is a basic misunderstanding on both sides of the argument, because there are people out there crafting policies or arguing that there should be gate keepers and that there actually does exist some sort of editorial process. Many established editors have or have a belief that they operate as a part of that process, and that their opinion is actually definitive.
To go back, if you think this couldn't exist in old-style wikis, you would be wrong (in my experience). That kind of inflexibility is a people issue you would find anywhere (particularly in voluntary organisations, again in my experience).
To get back to the complainant, I'll say this. If I had a friend (and I have been asked exactly this) who has an idea for a Wikipedia article on a topic of immediate personal interest, what would I advise? I'd say "edit the site generally for three months, before trying to edit on anything you really care about". This is nothing new: I felt this five years ago. I think this is the right advice. Sure, the USP is "you can edit this site right now". I think the intelligent reaction is "it can't be that simple, surely" and that is also true: it is easy to edit and make changes, which can be edited right back.
Of course the "not-so-newbie" in question still complains of being bitten, but as I've said previously in the thread, the treatment in the form of requests to upgrade the article is not accurately described as "bullying".
Charles