[WikiEN-l] Nuke [[WP:CITE]] and [[WP:RS]]

[Ray Saintonge]

Thomas Dalton wrote:

>>You are advocating the complete abandonment of the principles that
>>underly Wikipedia.
>>
>>"You can edit this page right now." That's the mantra. That's the
>>key. That's what got us where we are. It's foolish to give up on the
>>thing that made us succeed where other things (Nupedia) failed.
>>    
>>
>The key underlying principle is making a free encyclopedia available
>to everyone. "Anyone can edit" is simply a means to an end - it is
>secondary to the goal of making an encyclopedia.
>
>We should be working to make things better for the readers, not the
>contributors. Relaxing our rules on using reliable sources would be
>great for the contributors, but makes the website pretty much useless
>for the readers.
>
Whether this makes sense depends on how you envision the reader.  The 
endgame of "Anyone can edit" is "Everyone can edit". At that point the 
reader and the contributor are synonymous.  In our goal of making an 
encyclopedia we are also revolutionizing the notion of an encyclopedia.  
Our encyclopedia is not just the passive paper encyclopedia of old where 
the reader could look through a chosen article, and be sated with what 
he took in.  We want readers who will think critically and will leave 
with questions instead of answers.

I would question the consumerist model of an encyclopedia.  We need to 
remember that that model was based on a circumstance where the means of 
production were not readily available to the users.  A simple reversal 
of that circumstance is having far reaching effects.  We can now 
consider options that the technology did not allow us to consider 
before.  No "fact" is beyond question, and we cannot allow ourselves to 
be lulled into the false security that having a source means that all's 
well with the 'pedia.  The editors who will do best are those with the 
skill to thrive in uncertainty, and who perhaps have come to terms with 
the theology of the trickster.

Ec