[Wikipedia-l] How-tos

[Jeroen Heijmans]

>
>
>From: lcrocker at nupedia.com
>
>I totally fail to see your point here.  It's not a dictionary
>entry at all--it's an article that gives the flavor of a group
>of languages.  I think it's a great article, and exactly the
>kind of thing that should be in Wikipedia.  I think most paper
>encyclopedias have articles like this as well.  It's nothing at
>all like a dictionary entry.
>
To me, an article that says: this word/phrase means this in language A, 
B, C is pretty much a dictionary.

>Sorry, I don't see any resemblance there either.  The guideline
>you mention is "wikipedia is not a usage guide.", and these
>articles have nothing at all to do with language usage.
>
OK, I misunderstood the rule there, it apparently applies only to word 
usage.

>Besides which, I think you're taking "what Wikipedia is not"
>far too seriously and literally.  Just because we don't want
>Wikipedia to /become/ a dictionary, or a usage guide, or any
>number of other things, that doesn't mean it can't /contain/
>the occasional article that looks like those things, when that's
>appropriate.  When it's appropriate is a matter of judgment.
>
I'm kind of puzzeled with that. On the list, we are regularly reminded 
that "wikipedia has no rules". However, when I arrived, I was urged 
(politely) to follow all kinds of policies, guidelines and conventions. 
To become a sysop, it is even required to know about most of these 
rules. Many of the sysops spend many times on making these rules. 
However, when these are broken, the resulting reaction is not always the 
same. Sometimes, we obey the rules and correct whatever went wrong, at 
other times it is said "this article can stay this way because 
(blabla)". To me, this suggests that something is wrong with these 
rules. Maybe we should not have any rules at all, but I think it is 
clear it become a big mess then. So if we have any 
rules/guidelines/policies/conventions at all, we should obey them 
regardless the article, the author or the topic. If we want to make 
exceptions the rules should be rewritten so that everybody can see why 
some is as it is, otherwise the same issues will be raised over and over 
again.

>Again, use some judgment instead of blindly following rules.
>Are they good articles?  Are they interesting, well written?  Do
>they provide useful information?
>
I know many pieces of text that are all of the above, but wouldn't 
qualify for Wikipedia.

Mav:

>I once brought this very question up on the cookbook's talk page and was told 
>that these pages are poplar for visitors and that Wikipedia is not paper. 
>That was enough for me. And we shouldn't be too concerned with the NPOVness 
>of a recipe. :-)
>
Wikipedia is not paper. Great, so we have a lot of space. Then why are 
dictionary entries, full-text articles and list of quotations and 
external links NOT acceptable while, apparently, recipes are?

>What's more is that I now see /very/ little by the way of current editing of 
>these pages or the creation of similar ones so I don't think their presense 
>sets any type of bad precedent.
>
I'm not sure I understand what you say here...

Jeronimo