[WikiEN-l] Restructuring, renaming, creating and removing Wikiprojects

Mon Jun 21 21:41:46 UTC 2004

Charles Matthews wrote:

>Simonides of Ceos wrote
>  
>
>>I believe Wikiprojects are a good way of dealing with or smoothing out
>>    
>>
>categories, and providing context where it may not exist or may not be
>substantial. A sizeable number of people with similar interests, working
>together on a large Wikiproject, would easily be able to agree on, create
>and link necessary categories to each other; errors are also less likely.
>Criticism is welcome. Please also join in the effort to write up, modify and
>expand some of the Wikiprojects I have created.
>Thanks!
>
>Does it work that way?  My experience is that WikiProjects typically have a
>stated aim of 'standardising' how articles are written; which sounds good to
>some people but is never enforceable and can be too prescriptive.
>Categories can be added by individuals acting alone.  Where there are
>already lists of articles by topics, adding categories is relatively
>straightforward.  The creation of such lists really ought to devolve to
>relevant WikiProjects; but that doesn't seem to be how it pans out in
>practice.
>  
>
I agree that there is a standardizing aim that is an essential part of 
the WikiProjects,  and that's just fine.  I welcome the efforts to give 
some depth to the study of what links some topic.  We get into trouble 
when the standardizers begin to see their guidlines as implicit rules, 
or their descriptions as implicit prescriptions. 

It makes some of us cringe, but at this stage categorization is a 
chaotic process, and that's good.  If someone's categorization proposal 
is a good one, others will eventually begin to use it; there is no need 
to enforce it.  What doesn't work will die from disuse. 

Ec