[WikiEN-l] Joke

[Steve Bennett]

On 7/15/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> Policy means nothing here, then?  We can allow OR and subjective
> judgments as to which jokes do or don't represent the genre?

Honestly, I don't find creating original examples to be in violation
of NOR. An article about an element of musical theory would not be in
violation if an editor created an original piece of music that
demonstrated that theory. Just like we allow people to create original
diagrams that illustrate concepts. IMHO anyway. Subjective judgements
as to which jokes represent the genre are definitely ok - that's
exactly how Wikipedia functions. The entire thing is full of
"subjective judgements" as to which comparisons to what are relevant -
many articles on cities contain comparisons to other cities, and there
are plenty of examples of "subjective" decisions as to whether or not
the subjective of an example "represents" some other genre - our whole
category system is based on it. Not a problem.

> And a couple becomes three becomes four and before you know it we are
> back where we were before, with a long list of jokes of variable
> (generally poor) quality added mainly by drive-by anons.

No. You decide collectively how many jokes you want, then put a
comment in the text thus:

<joke 1>
...
<joke 4>
<!-- no more jokes please, see discussion: 4 is the right number -->

> Exactly.  So: one example, with a good source for it being widely
> considered representative, is the way to go :-)

One example is too limiting. What would an encyclopaedia do? It would
have the "right number" of "good examples". Something that takes what
one usually calls "editorial judgment". Very tricky to implement at
Wikipedia.

> In the article on offensive jokes, we can include examples of
> offensive jokes.  But in high level articles we should be a bit more
> considerate.

Definitely.

> Mind you, I would also have used :Image: in the Jyllands-Posten
> article, so I am a notorious censor and suppressor of information :-)

Better to be safe than sorry.

Steve