[Foundation-l] Cross-wiki articles

[Samuel Klein]

On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 4:16 PM, Ting Chen <wing.philopp at gmx.de> wrote:
> Amir Elisha Aharoni wrote:
>> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 21:09, Yoni Weiden <yonidebest at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> The question is - shouldn't there be one set of standards for all
>>> Wikipedias?

Perhaps for issues so important that they demand standardization.  We
roughly try to do this for truly core policies, legal updates, &c.
Are TV-program-episode notability guidelines are one of those highly
important standards?  I'm not so sure.

>> I do think that there should be one set of standards for all
>> languages. But it may be hard to enforce it on an existing community.
>
> No, because we are not able to reach a concensus across all the language
> communities. Thus each project community should reach their own
> concensus. Personally I find this diversity also a very good thing
> because one can always get ideas from other projects, good ones to
> follow, bad ones to avoid or to change.

Yes.  I do think that over a longer period of time good policies for
which there is some benefit to standardization can become standard for
the larger global community.  We should probably have a more definite
process for this.  So far it hasn't been a critical issue (though
freeness of images has made as good an argument as any discussion I've
seen so far).

>> implications, but it is next to impossible to enforce Notability or
>> Verifiability policies.

Again, this is also true within one project.  It is only 1-2
magnitudes harder across projects, not necessarily different in
quality.  [this process would be easier if the cross-wiki policy
pageson meta were clearer and easier to add to, it is true.  I copy
the underused wikimediameta list for the sake of propriety...]


>> Few he-wikipedians care about it, but he.wikipedia did quite well for
>> several years without a clear written policy on any of the following:
>> Living People, Notability, Original Research and Verifiability. All
>> decisions on these matters are made ad hoc. To our friends from
>> en.wikipedia it must seem surreal :)
>>
> No, this is the ideal state. Actually I don't like written rules. Rules
> are dead things and often they don't really fit to the actual situation.
> If one can discuss every case and reach a concensus without a fix rule
> this is for me the best case. But this only works in a relatively small
> community and doesn't fit a very big and diverse community.

+1   (this is true whether the unwritten rules are 'across many wikis'
or just 'for your one wiki'... or just understood among editors in a
given subject area.)

SJ