[Wikipedia-l] Quality, audience and policies (apparently) colliding... what a mess!

[Andre Engels]

2007/5/8, Massimo DZ8 <frag_dz8 at libero.it>:

> A first issue was about WP:CON, since my edits (referenced) seems to
> have met very little consensus so I've tried to pull out a few
> "focalized" questions.
>
>      1. Is WP:CON valid on different informations? In other words,
>         WP:CON obviously applies when the information given is the same.
>         Does WP:CON apply when the information is different? Does it
>         make sense?

Yes. WP:CON is about the selection of information as well as about its
presentation.

>      2. Is WP:CON allowed to "override" WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:RS? The
>         implication of this are rather important: it means that if the
>         average user is misinformed, the articles should spread this
>         misinformation just because this is what's expected. It's
>         definetly something that doesn't seem to make sense, especially
>         when this badly collides with the references.

Given that a great number of Wikipedians endorses those values, if you
think there's a consensus going against it, either you are wrong in
that it does, or you are doing a bad job in explaining that it does.

>      3. How is consensus evaluated in reference to audience? It
>         obviously doesn't make any sense to count the number of votes,
>         especially for highly specific readings (quantum physics?
>         relativity? chemistry?)

No, you don't count votes. If there is only a single person or a
fringe group disagreeing, you ignore them. If there is a sizable
minority disagreeing then there is no consensus, and we should go on
in finding one - either by searching new alternatives or by convincing
others of our idea.

> Moreover, I have a few additional questions regarding the issue I
> recently faced.
>
>      A. The power of an hypermedia paradigm is allowing each reader to
>         "follow its way". I have read a few about the need for
>         introductions however doesn't this contradict the capabilities
>         of hypermedia? Is it wrong to assume a reader would follow
>         links? What is a "reasonable" assumption? This may imply that
>         every article should include at least a part of others,
>         something that doesn't seem optimal.

In general giving background is good. However, it is rarely necessary
to give more than a few lines of it if the article is well linked. For
example, in an article about someone whose only or main claim to fame
is that he played a special role in the Battle of Gettysburg, I would
expect to see mentioned that the Battle of Gettysburg is part of the
American Civil War, but not an overview of the issues that led to the
Secession.

>      B. How can editors be encouraged at writing something which is
>         actually a redlink or stub? I have seen a user removing the
>         redlink and maybe even complaining because there was one.

There are several projects to give people ideas about articles to
write about. Still, in the end it all comes down to "We're all
volunteers, so you cannot force us, so the only way to ensure that the
article you want is written is by writing it yourself."

>      C. Supposing two references collide with each other, what one takes
>         precedence? This actually doesn't happen for careful readers but
>         seems common for casual readers without in-depth knowledge,
>         probably because they don't recognize the context is different.

There can't be any general rule on this, but I do have to say that
there are many cases where neither takes precedence, but the NPOV
thing is to give both their say.

>      D. What's the way to deal with users that (good faith obviously
>         intended) end messing up everything?

Give them advise on how to avoid messing things up in the future. And
revert their messing up while trying to keep the good of their edits.

>      E. How to deal with the above issue when the new version meets
>         greater consensus?

Surely if there is consensus that the article has improved, it has not
been messed up?

>      F. What to do when the above case contradicts sources? What if, to
>         remove the contradiction, the sources are removed? (ykes!)

You're starting to lose me here...

>      G. What about "article attacks"? An user once wrote as an edit
>         summary "...this seems stolen..." and then pointed out over 2000
>         pages to check!

Ask them for more specific info - why do they think it's stolen?



In general, I would like to give you the following advise:

It sounds like your page got edited quite furiously, and you want to
undo that. That's not the way things work on Wikipedia. What you do
(and that's what 'consensus' is really about, rather than about
majorities) is to look at the edits, see what's good in them and what
bad, and then try to write a version that incorporates the good things
from both versions, so that both you and the person who changed the
page would be satisfied with it. More specifically, without having the
foggiest idea what page you're talking about, it seems that the new
version is less accurate but more understandable than yours. Surely it
should be possible to make a version that is more accurate than the
new one, yet more understandable than yours?

-- 
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels