[WikiEN-l] POV forks, and "the 32K devil made me do it"

Sun Feb 27 14:59:17 UTC 2005

I don't know whether PJacobi is "on a hunt," but I am not at all happy 
about the current state of the "Prem Rawat" and "Criticism of Prem 
Rawat" article. While trying not to extend that battle here, I want to 
make two points:

a) HYPOTHETICALLY (i.e. I DO NOT want to argue about whether Prem Rawat 
actually is an example of this situation): SUPPOSE that there is a 
topic that is being contentiously edited by two factions, A and B, that 
include most of the WIkipedians actively interested in working on the 
topic. The two factions could cut a deal in which they produce two 
articles, one presenting faction A's viewpoint and one presenting 
faction B's viewpoint, and agree that they will each tolerate and stay 
out of the other faction's article provided the other faction does the 
same. In this case, you have two POV articles--and because of the 
agreement by the two factions and the disinterest by other Wikipedians, 
the situation is likely to be stable.

Surely we agree that that is a VERY unsatisfactory situation, and not 
what is meant by NPOV?

If we have to have this sort of thing, we need to figure out out a way 
to legitimize it, e.g. with a template saying "This article represents 
one view of a disputed issue. For the other view, see..."

b) In any case, I really dislike seeing the 32K limit being brought up 
as justification for doing things. 32K is a reasonable _guideline,_ and 
that articles in, say, the range 32K to 96K should be refactored 
_eventually_. But it should not be regarded as an urgent necessity. 
Particularly in the case of a disputed topic, the article should be 
left to stew and mellow. _When it has reached a stable state_, the need 
to break it up should be discussed.

But breaking up an oversized article shouldn't be a high priority. 
Breaking up a 32 to 96K article is just _cleanup,_ and it's a _lot_ 
less important than a lot of other cleanup. _As long as no single 
section_ is over 32K, people with older browsers can participate 
actively in almost every part of the editing process. About all that 
they cannot do is load the entire article as a whole in order to make 
major changes in the section organization.

I think the 32K limit is often used as a convenient excuse for unwise 
breakouts--specifically, POV splits and subtrivia. ("I couldn't put the 
vital, encyclopedic, verified fact that John Kerry flip-flopped in 
August, 1960 at the Central Street McDonalds when he ordered a Quarter 
Pounder _and tried to exchange it for a Quarter Pounder with 
Cheese_--the main article is over 32K!)

The 32K limit gets an unjustified amount of attention because a warning 
is displayed automatically. The wording of that warning ought to be 
toned way down. This is just one of many issues involved in browser 
compatibility, and not the most important one.

I notice that no warning is displayed about the use of Unicode 
characters, even though these also present problems in older browsers 
(and sometimes newer ones!) In gauging the seriousness of these issues, 
note too that using characters outside, say, ISO Latin-1 actually 
presents problems to people passively _viewing_ the article, whereas 
articles over 32K are still viewable by everyone (and editable within 
sections by everyone).

--
Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
"Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/