[WikiEN-l] Accountability: bringing back a proposal I made nearly 2 years ago

[Marc Riddell]

> Marc Riddell wrote:
> 
>> David isn't the only one having a problem with this. Are you
>> talking about a
>> "policy" that would be suggested be followed - or a "rule" that, if
>> broken,
>> would carry punitive consequences?

on 3/7/07 11:46 AM, Sheldon Rampton at sheldon at prwatch.org wrote:

> 
> Wikipedia makes a distinction between "guidelines" and "policies,"
> but I'm not aware of a distinction between "rules" and "policies." In
> any case, I think honesty should be a policy, and yes, policies on
> Wikipedia carry possible punitive consequences. Someone who
> repeatedly plagiarizes or is insulting and abusive to others gets
> blocked. I don't see why it should be any more controversial to think
> Wikipedia should have an explicit honesty policy than to think it
> should have a civility policy.
> 
Regardless of what you want to call them, are we a culture based on
policies/rules ­ or based on trust?

>Marc seems to think that requiring users
> to be honest on their user pages is so onerous that we have to fear
> the punitive consequences.

Please be careful in trying to analyze what I am thinking at any given time;
sometimes I have trouble doing that :-).

I feel that whatever a person places on their own, personal, User Page is
their own business. What possible difference could it make to the quality of
the real reason we are here: the encyclopedia.
> 
> In fact, it *doesn't* go without saying. In the absence of a
> generally agreed-upon policy, it *isn't* self-evident that users need
> to be honest on their user pages.

I believe when honesty and integrity are taught from the very beginning of a
person¹s experience these values stay with them. These values are threatened
only when the person believes their very survival is at stake. Within
Wikipedia, if honesty and integrity were cornerstones of the very culture,
and clearly necessary for a person to thrive within it, anyone not sharing
those values, and exhibiting behaviors contrary to them, would not last very
long.


Marc Riddell