Essays Low‑impact | ||||||||||
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The history of this page seems odd. It begins as a page in full... was it copied from somewhere? Whats the deal - I really doubt Radiant made the first edit as his own work all at once. Fresheneesz 21:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I think there is another P, which is even more important to Wikipedia than product, process and policy - and that is people. We should always strive to remember that our fellow editors are people, and they are all entitled to be treated with courtesy, politeness and respect at all times. And that includes anonymous contributors, newbies, POV pushers, spammers, vandals and sockpuppets. Even where it is necessary to reprimand or apply sanctions to another editor, we should always do this in a polite way. WP:CIVIL says a lot more about this. I think we should extend the 3Ps essay to a 4Ps essay - People, product, process, policy. Views ? Gandalf61 10:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I think this essay overlooks the value of process and too often I see admins trying to circumvent the rules simply by saying 'product not process' when there is a large disagreement.
The purpose of process is to enforce policy in the most effective way possible. I can't remember the term offhand, but there is a term basically (in spirit) stating that as a social community grows bigger, it becomes much, much harder to rely on people using common sense (bandwagon/herd mentality, greater diversity of viewpoints, etc lead to this) and being able to act in a civil and straightforward manner.
In other words, it becomes more convoluted, which is the reason RfA uses a vote system without comments in the normal tradition; it becomes too convuluted and unweildy with that many people, therefore they created the voting PROCESS.
The bigger a dispute gets, the greater the need for process and I really think many people don't understand this. Process is designed to be as objective and fair as feasible (as flawed as a given process may be, lack of process would be chaos) for large groups. It prevents people from using dubious tactics to do something like "no one else's opinions matter because [insert name of person they consider highly reputable/respectable/an expert/etc]" (yes, someone has actually claimed once that everyone was wrong simply because an expert said so before backpedaling) or "I own this article because I have credentials X, Y & Z."
Process allows a more even, fair and distributed say among Wikipedians, instead of allowing a small, vocal few to essentially act as oligarchy style dictators. I should note that this is also the primary weapon a regular editor (noting the "regular editor"s are responsible for most of Wikipedia's content) has against an someone with a higher technical (e.g. admin) and/or social status.
So where does product override process? Because this is essentially relying on personal judgment (applying IAR to make the 'product' better), it should be used conservatively. Mainly, it's for when there is an obvious consensus and/or there really aren't that many people involved and you just want to make good content.
- Nathan J. Yoder 22:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
less focus on the last 2 and more on the first JeanLatore ( talk) 02:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
You homesteaded WP:PPP before Wikipedia:Page protection patrol had a chance to. Aldrich Hanssen ( talk) 03:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_August_29#Category:Transport - the only reason people bring up to re-rename categories is process. They should put more focus on the product. TruckCard ( talk) 14:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
As I read this essay, it appears to be in direct conflict with WP:CONLIMITED. The first paragraph reads,
Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.
I also read this to say that a bunch of editors can't override clear policy--i.e. something middle of the road, not some boderline or lawyering case. Think of a group of editors posting textbook type material to Wikipedia, and agreeing that it should stay on the talk page (because it is super useful!). Then I guess the idea of this essay is that if people started doing these things all over, then Wikipedia would eventually change its policy to reflect that change to a textbook type style? But maybe I misunderstand. 018 ( talk) 16:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC) (BTW, I'm not talking about a particular case, just something I was wondering about with an example.)
Essays Low‑impact | ||||||||||
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The history of this page seems odd. It begins as a page in full... was it copied from somewhere? Whats the deal - I really doubt Radiant made the first edit as his own work all at once. Fresheneesz 21:26, 18 October 2006 (UTC)
I think there is another P, which is even more important to Wikipedia than product, process and policy - and that is people. We should always strive to remember that our fellow editors are people, and they are all entitled to be treated with courtesy, politeness and respect at all times. And that includes anonymous contributors, newbies, POV pushers, spammers, vandals and sockpuppets. Even where it is necessary to reprimand or apply sanctions to another editor, we should always do this in a polite way. WP:CIVIL says a lot more about this. I think we should extend the 3Ps essay to a 4Ps essay - People, product, process, policy. Views ? Gandalf61 10:38, 9 December 2006 (UTC)
I think this essay overlooks the value of process and too often I see admins trying to circumvent the rules simply by saying 'product not process' when there is a large disagreement.
The purpose of process is to enforce policy in the most effective way possible. I can't remember the term offhand, but there is a term basically (in spirit) stating that as a social community grows bigger, it becomes much, much harder to rely on people using common sense (bandwagon/herd mentality, greater diversity of viewpoints, etc lead to this) and being able to act in a civil and straightforward manner.
In other words, it becomes more convoluted, which is the reason RfA uses a vote system without comments in the normal tradition; it becomes too convuluted and unweildy with that many people, therefore they created the voting PROCESS.
The bigger a dispute gets, the greater the need for process and I really think many people don't understand this. Process is designed to be as objective and fair as feasible (as flawed as a given process may be, lack of process would be chaos) for large groups. It prevents people from using dubious tactics to do something like "no one else's opinions matter because [insert name of person they consider highly reputable/respectable/an expert/etc]" (yes, someone has actually claimed once that everyone was wrong simply because an expert said so before backpedaling) or "I own this article because I have credentials X, Y & Z."
Process allows a more even, fair and distributed say among Wikipedians, instead of allowing a small, vocal few to essentially act as oligarchy style dictators. I should note that this is also the primary weapon a regular editor (noting the "regular editor"s are responsible for most of Wikipedia's content) has against an someone with a higher technical (e.g. admin) and/or social status.
So where does product override process? Because this is essentially relying on personal judgment (applying IAR to make the 'product' better), it should be used conservatively. Mainly, it's for when there is an obvious consensus and/or there really aren't that many people involved and you just want to make good content.
- Nathan J. Yoder 22:15, 14 August 2007 (UTC)
less focus on the last 2 and more on the first JeanLatore ( talk) 02:44, 2 May 2008 (UTC)
You homesteaded WP:PPP before Wikipedia:Page protection patrol had a chance to. Aldrich Hanssen ( talk) 03:05, 5 August 2008 (UTC)
Wikipedia:Categories_for_discussion/Log/2010_August_29#Category:Transport - the only reason people bring up to re-rename categories is process. They should put more focus on the product. TruckCard ( talk) 14:16, 6 September 2010 (UTC)
As I read this essay, it appears to be in direct conflict with WP:CONLIMITED. The first paragraph reads,
Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale. For instance, unless they can convince the broader community that such action is right, participants in a WikiProject cannot decide that some generally accepted policy or guideline does not apply to articles within its scope.
I also read this to say that a bunch of editors can't override clear policy--i.e. something middle of the road, not some boderline or lawyering case. Think of a group of editors posting textbook type material to Wikipedia, and agreeing that it should stay on the talk page (because it is super useful!). Then I guess the idea of this essay is that if people started doing these things all over, then Wikipedia would eventually change its policy to reflect that change to a textbook type style? But maybe I misunderstand. 018 ( talk) 16:42, 22 October 2010 (UTC) (BTW, I'm not talking about a particular case, just something I was wondering about with an example.)