[WikiEN-l] Citizendium on quality

[Monahon, Peter B.]

> Earlier: "...We have talked about stable 
> versions for too long.  We should be 
> doing it..."

Peter Blaise responds: "Stable versions" of any so-called knowledge are
the antithesis of knowledge, and are totally inappropriate for anything
but tired religionists who want to stop thinking once and for all.  Flat
earth was stable.  Blood letting was stable.  Burning witches was
stable.  Wikipedia should be PROUD of it's article flow and instability
- it means every new visitor is always welcome, and their contribution
is valued to "edit every page".  Otherwise, it's the Wikipedia of the
dead.

Now, if you can build a tool to list articles that haven't changed the
longest, that might be cool.  But, what does it mean?  Does it mean that
that article is "stable" or "stoopid" or "boring" or "arcane" or ...
anyone guess!  It's totally meaningless!

The whole point of Wikipedia was trusting another source than academia,
so-called authority, and so-called stability!  People who say "it can't
go into Wikipedia unless it's been published somewhere else first" drive
me crazy - it's not "Book-report-a-pedia".  Like the scene at the
beginning of Stargate (where he corrects the translation of hieroglyphs
saying "that textbook is wrong, but everyone still uses it anyway"), all
those mindsets are doing is re-perpetuating the supremacy of the
pedantic (and wrong) decisions of dead writers and dead publishers.
Please leave them buried.  Please bring life to Wikipedia.  Wikipedia
was supposed to breathe NEW LIFE into knowledge pooling, not just be a
collective (ces)pool of the dead.

The problem with Wikipedia is NOT the contributors who dump the most
inane stuff into Wikipedia.  The problem is the first arrivers thinking
they now own Wikipedia, and are shocked, SHOCKED, at the messy,
uncontrollable, naive contributions from people who had the poor lack of
forethought to arrive second!

> Earlier: "...we are very under-manned..."

Peter Blaise responds: Actually, we are, Wikipedia is, inappropriately
administered ... where does this thread belong? ... oh, it's part of
EVERY thread, so why even bother with subject lines!!!  Back to
Veropedia ...

Veropedia is a sham, sort of a Google archives via Wikipedia admin
approval of the same crap and brick walls against new growth at
Wikipedia (they get their blue links from Wikipedia anyway, so the site
isn't really free-standing at all ...). From
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/10/29/1321247 "...no
disambiguation links...candidates for inclusion are reviewed by
recognized academics and experts..."  Hahahahahah!  Yet another mutual
masturbation society! "...The wiki is written by the victors..."

Lemme see, search for "photography" on Veropedia, 73 hits of which 2 are
valid, then on Wikipedia, 27,630 hits of which ... well, I stopped
counting after 5,000 valid hits!

My point is NOT the Wikipedia is broken and valueless, but that some
people are sequestering themselves on one or another side of a wall that
they themselves built.  That wall is built by some and is trying to be
opened or torn down by others.  But that wall is NOT Wikipedia, it is
ONE PART OF Wikipedia.  How important and definitive a part?  I'll let
"history" decide.  My point is to grow Wikipedia to let go of wall
building tools altogether, but until then, we'll have to deal with the
"build a wall" versus "tear it down" dynamic.  My proposal?  Said it
before, but until others figure out how to incorporate it, I just sound
repetitive if I put in every post!

Fight on!  Eventually someone will exhaust themselves, and then
Wikipedia will have lots of walls and wall maintainers, or...

==

PS - ad hominem simply means "to (ad) the man (hominem")" or, a personal
attack, such as calling someone a name, ridiculing them, accusing them
of some personality deficiency, or such.  See
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ad+hominem