--- On Mon, 8/4/08, Dror K <dror1975(a)icqmail.com> wrote:
These are only a few questions that are not properly
addressed, and the
system doesn't work well anymore. This kind of problems
rise more often
as more people write in Wikipedia and as the communities
grow, and we
fail to supply answers and solutions.
I don't know that there are any straightforward answers, but there are solutions.
However in this thread you have presented a solution without making very clear where there
are questions not being addressed, which makes it hard to help direct to you existing
solutions.
It is much easier to show the defects in your proposed solution. The underlying issue is
that for anything to be accomplished on a wiki critical mass is required. Not only to
build it general, but for any particular task or enforcement. Having the wikis work out
the local guidelines on these issues themselves is necessary to build the critical mass to
see the guidelines are followed in practice. I am very hopeful the process could be
helped along with targeted workshops, but it still must be done by local editors. Until
they grasp why NPOV or OR is dealt with in a certain way and more importantly what happens
when they are neglected, they will not care about the issue no matter what the policy
reads on the page.
It is local admins caring about the issue enough to require others to change there
behavior through social pressure which is the only way to fix the issues. en.WP for all
that the policies and guidelines say about references has 140,000 articles *tagged* as
completely lacking sources. There has been no watershed event like the press received
over BLP's to form a critical mass of people who really care about unreferenced
articles. Someday if a hoax that has existed unchecked on Wikipedia for five years and is
reported in the New York Times, that might create the critical mass. Or it might build in
an internal fashion, it may be simply a matter of more urgent issues being solved first
before. I am certain every wiki has policies that are not practiced as you would imagine
when reading them, so even if we could give everyone a perfected top 5 policies; the
problem would still exist. Besides likely being ineffective, handing such policies to
admins to
enforce would completely backfire (why would be another entire essay). We need to admins
to be invested in the particulars of the issue itself. That comes from policy building on
a local level. The overall guidelines of Wikipedias are embodied in being an encyclopedia
of free knowledge that anyone can edit. If anyone can edit it, NPOV is the only practical
method. If it is to be an encyclopedia, OR will be avoided. As along "free" is
understood a free content, the solution there are limited as well. The sister projects
overall guidelines are also embodied in their missions.
Birgitte SB