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How do you think about what I wrote as rule 6 under "What Wikipedia is not"? --> "Wikipedia is not a national encyclopedia focusing only on one specific culture or country. Therefore Wikipedia is neither an American, European, Asian or African encyclopedia. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia written in the English language. Wikipedia does not focus on American English. Therefore the British English can be used everywhere and should not be limited for articles relevant to the British culture; the same applies to other popular kinds of English, too." - Optim 21:26, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm sure I read something about British vs. American spelling somewhere else; Manual of Style, maybe? Anyway, it's covered elsewhere. Also, this might be misleading, causing people to think that it's OK to mix-and-match British and American spelling. Having both in one article is a pet peeve of mine. Meelar 21:32, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This has been fought over dozens of times since I've been here; the main Manual of Style generally represents the current armed truce :-) though not in maximal detail. Use of dialect most closely connected to the subject seems to keep the peace better than the alternatives; it's an interesting game to see how well one can write in a dialect other than one's own - I can remember some of the differences, but usually a native Brit will catch my oversights. Without an article being explicitly marked as to its original dialect, it is basically impossible to tell which dialect it was created in, and sometimes difficult for nonexperts to distinguish typos from dialectical usages, so it doesn't work to insist that the dialect of the first draft be preserved forever. I suppose someone should do an updated and dedicated MoS entry so that all this is clearer, and people don't get paranoid that WP is being secretly twisted into Americopedia, Britopedia, etc. (I'm doing my part! bought a book solely for the purpose of adding more Royal Navy material) Stan 22:31, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I like the international focus on "what wikipedia is not", but I don't think it should mention spelling, which is already excruciatingly documented in the Manual of Style. FWIW, the current compromise is that the form of English used by the primary (usually original) author of the article should be adhered to: that is, you should not change British to American English or vice-versa, with the exception that articles on a specific culture should use that culture's spelling. That is, United States House of Representatives should be written in US English, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom should be written in UK English. We also have a bias against anything other than US and UK English, as they are the two primary internationally-recognized dialects, and have a further bias against particular colloquialisms intelligible only within one region of the world. In any case, I think that level of detail belongs in the manual of style, where it currently is. -- Delirium 23:28, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
I think the entire statement is a complete waste. What are you trying to accomplish with it? If it's spelling, then that's been already taken care of by the MoS. Let people write about whatever subject they're interested in and have a good knowledge of. Don't tell them they can't just edit articles related to their culture - they know their culture best and should do so. Are you afraid that wikipedia will turn into a "national encyclopedia"? How so? -- Jia ng 06:06, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a national encyclopedia: Is this meant to support removal of articles typically found in national encyclopedias, e.g. the many Rambot entries on US towns? If it's just a spelling question, we should formulate it differently. -- User:Docu
FYI the current rule (edited by another user) is: "Wikipedia is not a national encyclopedia. While the English-language Wikipedia is, of course, written in the English language, it is to be international in its focus and content." and I agree with this version since the spelling issue is better to be addressed on the MoS page. Optim 06:28, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
American English is popular with our handful :-) of American readers; the use of British English everywhere would cause more snickering and giggling than anything else. But I've never seen any evidence of "oppression" or "discrimination" against "small cultures", on the contrary, there are lots of people creating articles on small towns in Mozambique and the like. Was there some incident that brought this on? The concern seems really unmotivated, especially considering that my fingers are right now sore from typing in hundreds of Greek names... I remember whole pages describing the evils of X-centric encyclopedizing, but can't seem to find them now. Stan 06:50, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
If it's to protect against Americanization, then be specific. I think this is more of an issue of what wikipedia is rather than what it is not. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. To say that it is not a "national encyclopedia" will lead people to draw the conclusion that they are being restricted from writing on country-specific articles or subjects that are not internationally known, though famous locally. -- Jia ng 07:03, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This whole hoo-ha seems like nothing more than an attempt to start an anti-American spelling revert war. RickK 21:13, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Come to think of it, since when have we had a "national encyclopedia"? The fact that it's all encompanssing is already implied. I think the statement says close to nothing useful. -- Jia ng 07:45, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Current practice is that articles about numbers can include both loosely defined lists (everything in which that number has some significance) and dictionary definitions. This practice is currently being voted on at Talk:List of numbers/Deletion#Vote on inclusion, and right now there's a majority in support of it, so I have changed this policy to reflect current practice. I don't like it, but the only alternative is to get rid of this stuff rather than be in violation of policy. —Eloquence 19:20, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)
The following seems to be the general idea that people have about how-to type content on Wikipedia. i.e. that it belongs on wikibooks, not wikipedia. I couldn't find anywhere where this was written out as policy, so this is my proposed addition to What Wikipedia is not:
Under what Wikipedia articles are not:
I know the wording is a little weak, but it's my first attempt.
-- Nohat 22:57, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)
I think that it is necessary to include articles about how to do things, how things were done, how others do things and so on. I can't think of any reason why it should not be in Wikipedia but loads of reasons why it should be. BL 02:47, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with How To articles per se. The problem is they are usually POV or original research. Anthony DiPierro 02:54, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
It is unclear to me whether or not this issue is resolved. I am interested in starting a Wiki at work and I am having trouble collecting the necessary information. This information seems like a silly thing not to have on one of the wiki*.org websites. If it exists, it would be nice to at least link it (prominently) from the "Wiki software" entry in wikipedia. I am considering appending what I have learned to that article and letting someone else sort it out. I want the information to be available, but I don't have enough time to figure this out. -- rs2 16:56, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I actually agree with the spirit of this, but dislike the wording. Can we find a way to make it clear that concensus of opinion amongst editors is good, but that facts, references and verifiability should be the result of such concensus? I'm well aware of how they arn't always, but I'm of the opinion that true concensus involves embrace of the truth ;) Sam Spade 02:48, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
This is a page about what types of things should or should not be included in Wikipedia (mostly what should not be in it, but exceptions to what should not be in it are also acceptable). It's not a page to discuss anything which can be phrased in a sentence beginning with "Wikipedia is not..." In other words, this isn't the place to write about personal attacks or ownership of articles or how to spell things. Not every wikipedia policy needs to be on this page. anthony [beware: this is a work in progess and will change without prior notice]
Recently pages like List of Sony products and individual products of IBM and Sony like Sony Ericsson P900 have been listed on Vfd with the assumption that Wikipedia is not a product catalog. Which of the 20 points of this page suggest that Wikipedia should not contain products-related info ? Will creating articles out of products/lists make wikipedia less of an encyclopedia ? Jay 18:37, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Failing to comprehend this leads inevitably to destroying the encyclopedia to please the community. Sadly this is the end result of the mailing list and IRC channel system and also of the concept of a " banned user" (whatever that is, since they always come back).
A recent user (whose name should not be pronounced any more, but who is not a banned user) recently gave as one of the reason for leaving the fact decisions were increasingly taken over irc discussions. The media of decision change, but the clique or cabal does not - although predictably the most determined advocates of cliques and social control fail to see they are in fact participating in such a system of social control.
However, it remains that the medium of discussion is not the same as the medium of presentation - the real power is not with those who contribute, not even who contribute the most or best, but with those who spend the most time influencing so-called authority, and trying to gain "infrastructure owners' trust" thereby.
The wrong idea of using another medium to make decisions, that not all users are empowered to use equally, and the wrong idea of "punishing" those who do not accept the power structure, both arise out of the idea of "community".
Neither concept makes for good editorial decisions, for example, often good articles are deleted out of process because of who wrote them, not because of what they say, and articles are "reverted" to being wrong, when they have been corrected. But both are absolutely necessary if there is to be a "community", and absolutely wrong if there is to be an "encyclopedia". The time has come to choose between the two.
The mailing list and other advocates of so-called "community" make rulership and ownership choices that are contrary to the spirit of the GNU FDL (if not the letter--mostly the fault of MediaWiki software which matches its terms imperfectly--should MediaWiki actually be ditched? no doubt "the community" which includes its developers will argue it must not).
Furthermore, they don't even recognize community bias, or make any attempt to find a representative sample of themselves to actually represent the "users" - who are, amazingly, totally shut out in the unique Wikipedia concept of a "user community consisting only of those who speak up on specific pages by name."
The idea of "virtual community" is stupid, and probably evil - it is epistemic community masquerading as real community with sad and predictable social consequences: people unable to tell a political dispute from a bodily threat, people unable to conceive of political methods of dispute resolution that are not themselves based on invasion and war. Plus the more pathetic consequences of people thinking they are making friends by typing, when they are really only making conspiracies and alliances to do things that do not matter all that much.
Darwikinism and a battlefield of ideas are more rational ways to run an encyclopedia, and can reward competence and a history of good edits, not whining, lying, and relationships with the bosses: "The community", like any community, rewards all the wrong things - its social capital is built on pleasing and helping *friends*, NOT actually serving users.
The mailing list/IRC channel system favours those incompetent people who speak up there, over competents who do not, in an encyclopedic sense. It should be ditched, immediately. Wikipedia needs editors, or at least, Wikipedia needs trolls to keep attacking groupthink, i.e. "community", more directly.
I'm very tempted to add another entry to this: Wikipedia is not a fan repository. There are so many fanatic people adding, deleting away what are more NPOV portions and adding their own gashing, over-the-top comments on players, especially of sports. I've a hard time keeping people from bashing other players. I'd love to have a line on top of sports personalities which says this. Mandel 15:32, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
There are more pages on wikipedia that are collections of internal links and internal links to articles that might someday exist than I know about. In fact, every time I find a new set of such pages, I'm amazed at both how many links on the page there are and how many sister pages that page has that I also didn't know about....
I don't see how this entry can even be considered as slightly true with the status quo. Not only that, but we've added a whole system to wiki just to handle collections of internal links. It's called Categories or something like that.
Now, I'm not objecting to collections of internal links. In fact, I might even have said once I liked them. I do however, think that either wiki is hypocritical, or this entry needs updating. -- ssd 02:19, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)
This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 |
How do you think about what I wrote as rule 6 under "What Wikipedia is not"? --> "Wikipedia is not a national encyclopedia focusing only on one specific culture or country. Therefore Wikipedia is neither an American, European, Asian or African encyclopedia. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia written in the English language. Wikipedia does not focus on American English. Therefore the British English can be used everywhere and should not be limited for articles relevant to the British culture; the same applies to other popular kinds of English, too." - Optim 21:26, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I'm sure I read something about British vs. American spelling somewhere else; Manual of Style, maybe? Anyway, it's covered elsewhere. Also, this might be misleading, causing people to think that it's OK to mix-and-match British and American spelling. Having both in one article is a pet peeve of mine. Meelar 21:32, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This has been fought over dozens of times since I've been here; the main Manual of Style generally represents the current armed truce :-) though not in maximal detail. Use of dialect most closely connected to the subject seems to keep the peace better than the alternatives; it's an interesting game to see how well one can write in a dialect other than one's own - I can remember some of the differences, but usually a native Brit will catch my oversights. Without an article being explicitly marked as to its original dialect, it is basically impossible to tell which dialect it was created in, and sometimes difficult for nonexperts to distinguish typos from dialectical usages, so it doesn't work to insist that the dialect of the first draft be preserved forever. I suppose someone should do an updated and dedicated MoS entry so that all this is clearer, and people don't get paranoid that WP is being secretly twisted into Americopedia, Britopedia, etc. (I'm doing my part! bought a book solely for the purpose of adding more Royal Navy material) Stan 22:31, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I like the international focus on "what wikipedia is not", but I don't think it should mention spelling, which is already excruciatingly documented in the Manual of Style. FWIW, the current compromise is that the form of English used by the primary (usually original) author of the article should be adhered to: that is, you should not change British to American English or vice-versa, with the exception that articles on a specific culture should use that culture's spelling. That is, United States House of Representatives should be written in US English, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom should be written in UK English. We also have a bias against anything other than US and UK English, as they are the two primary internationally-recognized dialects, and have a further bias against particular colloquialisms intelligible only within one region of the world. In any case, I think that level of detail belongs in the manual of style, where it currently is. -- Delirium 23:28, Feb 19, 2004 (UTC)
I think the entire statement is a complete waste. What are you trying to accomplish with it? If it's spelling, then that's been already taken care of by the MoS. Let people write about whatever subject they're interested in and have a good knowledge of. Don't tell them they can't just edit articles related to their culture - they know their culture best and should do so. Are you afraid that wikipedia will turn into a "national encyclopedia"? How so? -- Jia ng 06:06, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia is not a national encyclopedia: Is this meant to support removal of articles typically found in national encyclopedias, e.g. the many Rambot entries on US towns? If it's just a spelling question, we should formulate it differently. -- User:Docu
FYI the current rule (edited by another user) is: "Wikipedia is not a national encyclopedia. While the English-language Wikipedia is, of course, written in the English language, it is to be international in its focus and content." and I agree with this version since the spelling issue is better to be addressed on the MoS page. Optim 06:28, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
American English is popular with our handful :-) of American readers; the use of British English everywhere would cause more snickering and giggling than anything else. But I've never seen any evidence of "oppression" or "discrimination" against "small cultures", on the contrary, there are lots of people creating articles on small towns in Mozambique and the like. Was there some incident that brought this on? The concern seems really unmotivated, especially considering that my fingers are right now sore from typing in hundreds of Greek names... I remember whole pages describing the evils of X-centric encyclopedizing, but can't seem to find them now. Stan 06:50, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
If it's to protect against Americanization, then be specific. I think this is more of an issue of what wikipedia is rather than what it is not. Wikipedia is an international encyclopedia. To say that it is not a "national encyclopedia" will lead people to draw the conclusion that they are being restricted from writing on country-specific articles or subjects that are not internationally known, though famous locally. -- Jia ng 07:03, 20 Feb 2004 (UTC)
This whole hoo-ha seems like nothing more than an attempt to start an anti-American spelling revert war. RickK 21:13, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Come to think of it, since when have we had a "national encyclopedia"? The fact that it's all encompanssing is already implied. I think the statement says close to nothing useful. -- Jia ng 07:45, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)
Current practice is that articles about numbers can include both loosely defined lists (everything in which that number has some significance) and dictionary definitions. This practice is currently being voted on at Talk:List of numbers/Deletion#Vote on inclusion, and right now there's a majority in support of it, so I have changed this policy to reflect current practice. I don't like it, but the only alternative is to get rid of this stuff rather than be in violation of policy. —Eloquence 19:20, Feb 22, 2004 (UTC)
The following seems to be the general idea that people have about how-to type content on Wikipedia. i.e. that it belongs on wikibooks, not wikipedia. I couldn't find anywhere where this was written out as policy, so this is my proposed addition to What Wikipedia is not:
Under what Wikipedia articles are not:
I know the wording is a little weak, but it's my first attempt.
-- Nohat 22:57, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)
I think that it is necessary to include articles about how to do things, how things were done, how others do things and so on. I can't think of any reason why it should not be in Wikipedia but loads of reasons why it should be. BL 02:47, Mar 2, 2004 (UTC)
I don't see anything wrong with How To articles per se. The problem is they are usually POV or original research. Anthony DiPierro 02:54, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)
It is unclear to me whether or not this issue is resolved. I am interested in starting a Wiki at work and I am having trouble collecting the necessary information. This information seems like a silly thing not to have on one of the wiki*.org websites. If it exists, it would be nice to at least link it (prominently) from the "Wiki software" entry in wikipedia. I am considering appending what I have learned to that article and letting someone else sort it out. I want the information to be available, but I don't have enough time to figure this out. -- rs2 16:56, 22 Mar 2004 (UTC)
I actually agree with the spirit of this, but dislike the wording. Can we find a way to make it clear that concensus of opinion amongst editors is good, but that facts, references and verifiability should be the result of such concensus? I'm well aware of how they arn't always, but I'm of the opinion that true concensus involves embrace of the truth ;) Sam Spade 02:48, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
This is a page about what types of things should or should not be included in Wikipedia (mostly what should not be in it, but exceptions to what should not be in it are also acceptable). It's not a page to discuss anything which can be phrased in a sentence beginning with "Wikipedia is not..." In other words, this isn't the place to write about personal attacks or ownership of articles or how to spell things. Not every wikipedia policy needs to be on this page. anthony [beware: this is a work in progess and will change without prior notice]
Recently pages like List of Sony products and individual products of IBM and Sony like Sony Ericsson P900 have been listed on Vfd with the assumption that Wikipedia is not a product catalog. Which of the 20 points of this page suggest that Wikipedia should not contain products-related info ? Will creating articles out of products/lists make wikipedia less of an encyclopedia ? Jay 18:37, 16 Apr 2004 (UTC)
Failing to comprehend this leads inevitably to destroying the encyclopedia to please the community. Sadly this is the end result of the mailing list and IRC channel system and also of the concept of a " banned user" (whatever that is, since they always come back).
A recent user (whose name should not be pronounced any more, but who is not a banned user) recently gave as one of the reason for leaving the fact decisions were increasingly taken over irc discussions. The media of decision change, but the clique or cabal does not - although predictably the most determined advocates of cliques and social control fail to see they are in fact participating in such a system of social control.
However, it remains that the medium of discussion is not the same as the medium of presentation - the real power is not with those who contribute, not even who contribute the most or best, but with those who spend the most time influencing so-called authority, and trying to gain "infrastructure owners' trust" thereby.
The wrong idea of using another medium to make decisions, that not all users are empowered to use equally, and the wrong idea of "punishing" those who do not accept the power structure, both arise out of the idea of "community".
Neither concept makes for good editorial decisions, for example, often good articles are deleted out of process because of who wrote them, not because of what they say, and articles are "reverted" to being wrong, when they have been corrected. But both are absolutely necessary if there is to be a "community", and absolutely wrong if there is to be an "encyclopedia". The time has come to choose between the two.
The mailing list and other advocates of so-called "community" make rulership and ownership choices that are contrary to the spirit of the GNU FDL (if not the letter--mostly the fault of MediaWiki software which matches its terms imperfectly--should MediaWiki actually be ditched? no doubt "the community" which includes its developers will argue it must not).
Furthermore, they don't even recognize community bias, or make any attempt to find a representative sample of themselves to actually represent the "users" - who are, amazingly, totally shut out in the unique Wikipedia concept of a "user community consisting only of those who speak up on specific pages by name."
The idea of "virtual community" is stupid, and probably evil - it is epistemic community masquerading as real community with sad and predictable social consequences: people unable to tell a political dispute from a bodily threat, people unable to conceive of political methods of dispute resolution that are not themselves based on invasion and war. Plus the more pathetic consequences of people thinking they are making friends by typing, when they are really only making conspiracies and alliances to do things that do not matter all that much.
Darwikinism and a battlefield of ideas are more rational ways to run an encyclopedia, and can reward competence and a history of good edits, not whining, lying, and relationships with the bosses: "The community", like any community, rewards all the wrong things - its social capital is built on pleasing and helping *friends*, NOT actually serving users.
The mailing list/IRC channel system favours those incompetent people who speak up there, over competents who do not, in an encyclopedic sense. It should be ditched, immediately. Wikipedia needs editors, or at least, Wikipedia needs trolls to keep attacking groupthink, i.e. "community", more directly.
I'm very tempted to add another entry to this: Wikipedia is not a fan repository. There are so many fanatic people adding, deleting away what are more NPOV portions and adding their own gashing, over-the-top comments on players, especially of sports. I've a hard time keeping people from bashing other players. I'd love to have a line on top of sports personalities which says this. Mandel 15:32, Jun 10, 2004 (UTC)
There are more pages on wikipedia that are collections of internal links and internal links to articles that might someday exist than I know about. In fact, every time I find a new set of such pages, I'm amazed at both how many links on the page there are and how many sister pages that page has that I also didn't know about....
I don't see how this entry can even be considered as slightly true with the status quo. Not only that, but we've added a whole system to wiki just to handle collections of internal links. It's called Categories or something like that.
Now, I'm not objecting to collections of internal links. In fact, I might even have said once I liked them. I do however, think that either wiki is hypocritical, or this entry needs updating. -- ssd 02:19, 12 Jun 2004 (UTC)