Don't sweat it so much. Sure wikipedia has the "goal" of being an encyclopedia, but achieving that goal would be a disappointment, it would become just another encyclopedia, something the world doesn't need. The real goal of wikipedia should be to become what wiki techniques and philosophy can achieve when it "tries" to become an encyclopedia. But it shouldn't try so hard that it abandons the wiki approach that makes it unique.
If wikipedia does not achieve true encyclopedia status and standards will it have a purpose? I think it will at least have a niche and will provide information, not just about the subject of the articles, but about the people and the international cultural mileau that created it. Many articles may never reach a static state, but perhaps there is also information in a dynamic equilibrium, a perpetual edit war between two or more viewpoints. A lot of the unique information may also be in the histories or on the talk page. There will be information about the strengths and weaknesses of the different viewpoints when viewed through each others filters and the filter of the artificial unachievable wikipedia standards.
I know if I were back in school, I would check wikipedia to supplement more traditional sources, and find it a more fertile source of ideas for papers and discussion, and perhaps crystalizing my own thinking. A lot of the information on wikipedia may not be about the subjects of the articles but about the people and peoples that created them.
Yes, wikipedia may have to deal with vandals or the occasional rigid mind that refuses to acknowledge other positions, or the occasional dunce that can't recognize subteties, even when they are on his "side", but perhaps the best approach rather than compromising wiki principles would be patient, persistent dedication to the process rather than sweating the product or the failure to reach the ever distant "goal".
Perhaps, like existentialists who are not "true" believers, we should continue to "act" like believers, but can be aware that we don't truly believe in the goals. The process, they dynamic equilibrium and the edit wars, and the attempts to resolve them, are all the REAL goal, while we are following yonder star and tilting at windmills. -- Silverback
-------------- Original message --------------
--- Geoffrey Burling wrote:
After reading the various opinions expressed here about how to deal with the small number of controversial articles which -- sadly -- are in
With all due respect, wikipedia already has too many rules. I suggest a much better policy: You fuck up an article, you clean it up. If you edit anywhere else before the article is nice and NPOV, you get a 3 month ban.
And I'm only half joking.
===== Chris Mahan 818.943.1850 cell chris_mahan@yahoo.com chris.mahan@gmail.com http://www.christophermahan.com/
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actionforum@comcast.net wrote
The real goal of wikipedia should be to become what wiki techniques and
philosophy can achieve when it "tries" to become an encyclopedia. But it shouldn't try so hard that it abandons the wiki approach that makes it unique.
Disagree/agree. The goal of WP _is_ to become an encyclopedia. The encyclopedia functionality is central. On the other hand the wiki aspect is also central. Those who want WP content but not the wiki side are free to set up a fork- that might be a valid project, but would not be WP.
Pick your metaphor. WP is an oasis of relative sanity on the Web, which neither sells nor preaches. WP is a hive, with a complex social scheme to produce free honey.
Charles
Charles Matthews wrote:
Disagree/agree. The goal of WP _is_ to become an encyclopedia. The encyclopedia functionality is central. On the other hand the wiki aspect is also central. Those who want WP content but not the wiki side are free to set up a fork- that might be a valid project, but would not be WP.
I agree with this, but for a sort of roundabout reason---the original, and still pretty much the only real goal of Wikipedia is to produce a good free-content encyclopedia. The Wiki aspect is simply the way of doing so that seems, so far, to have worked out the best (a model like Nupedia, for example, seems like it would've required exponentially more money to grow to a Wikipedia level of size and quality). I do think maintaining the "wikiness" is important, not really for its own sake, but because it's the best way to ensure that we have a good encyclopedia (and, increasingly, good textbooks, a good compendium of primary sources, and so on). IMO, if things were to become radically more centralized and hierarchical, Wikipedia would become more and more like an old-fashioned encyclopedia, and we already have some of those. =]
-Mark
--- actionforum@comcast.net wrote:
Don't sweat it so much. Sure wikipedia has the "goal" of being an encyclopedia, but achieving that goal would be a disappointment, it would become just another encyclopedia, something the world doesn't need. The real goal of wikipedia should be to become what wiki techniques and philosophy can achieve when it "tries" to become an encyclopedia. But it shouldn't try so hard that it abandons the wiki approach that makes it unique.
Wiki is only a means to an end, not an end unto itself. Without a product, there is no purpose in what we are doing. But by using the methods we have been using, we have started to redefine what an encyclopedia *can* be when there are no size limits.
-- mav
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