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@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