On 02/19/12 12:04 PM, Mike Godwin wrote:
On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 3:57 AM, Mike Christiecoldchrist@gmail.com wrote:
Perhaps the policies can be improved, but they are written to stop bad editing rather than to encourage good editing. I don't think that can be changed. It's impossible to legislate good judgement, and it's judgement that was called for with the Haymarket article.
If policies don't encourage good judgment, or discourage bad judgment, then what are policies for?
It seems worth discussing whether it would be good to revise the existing policy to restore its original (presumed) functionality.
More generally, I've believed for a long time that WP policies have been increased, modified, and subverted in ways that both create a higher barrier to entry for new editors and that discourage both new editors and existing ones.
Policies in general tend to discourage judgement of any sort. Even when such policies are classified as guidelines there will always be those who seek their rigid application. In criminal law, when an accused is acquitted of a particularly heinous crime there will always be those who believe that it's because the law was not tough enough. They often succeed in making it tougher, and end up catching more fish than intended.
I just passed my 10th Wiki Birthday, and I'm certainly discouraged from much substantial editing. I often leave material that I suspect to be wrong because the emotional cost of making the correction is much too high. If others do that too the reliability of the entire Wikipedia is put in question.
As Mark has said, some subjects are highly vulnerable to recentism, but one shouldn't expect that with a historical article about events from 1886. When crowdsourcing it is dangerous to assume that the majority will always be right. That perpetuates errors, and makes correcting them very difficult. Whatever we think of Stalin we want to spell his name right. An English speaking majority in a Google ranking refers to him as Joseph even if a stricter or more scholarly transliteration gives Josef. Whatever spelling we choose alters the landscape; as a highly popular source that is often quoted and copied we set the standard for what is correct. Our errors will establish the norm. We become our own uncertainty principle.
Ray