[WikiEN-l] Re: Suggestions for a work-safe encyclopedia

Fri Apr 15 05:36:18 UTC 2005

On Thu, Apr 14, 2005 at 05:30:08PM +0100, geni wrote:
> > Precisely. You're blaming Wikipedia for your boss's cluelessness.
> 
> IT departments exist for a reason. I supose that you are going to try
> and use your learn to use your browser argument again. Unfortuently

Let's step back a moment and look at this from a more "principles of the
discussion" perspective.  I think you're both responding based on being
too close to the details of the landscape, and missing the "big picture"
panorama before you.

1.  Tony Sidaway supports the idea that Wikipedia should be technically
effective, and to heck with social factors that interfere with that in
any way.

2.  geni supports the idea that Wikipedia, to maximize opportunity for
survival and growth, must pay homage to social conventions that demand
certain (effectively arbitrary) limits on technical implementation.

My personal sympathies lie pretty well perfectly aligned with Tony's
stance.  I'm very much a "technical accuracy first, social pandering if
we have time later" sort of person.  Yes, I phrased that pejoratively,
because that's how I tend to think of it.  That doesn't mean I don't see
the point of geni's stance.

Both are absolutely correct within the realm of their primary concerns
in this debate.  There are two constructive approaches that come
immediately to my mind for resolving the matter:

1.  We can take the organic growth approach, and try to just balance the
two as well as we can by (very) rough consensus.  This is what we're
already doing.  The big downside is that these arguments will continue
indefinitely.  I'll leave upside(s) as an exercise for the reader.

2.  We can draft a set of guiding principles by which such matters will
be judged, beginning with a logical progression from the core purpose of
the project as a whole.  My knee-jerk sympathies lie with this option,
for much the same reasons that they lie as well with the "technical
accuracy" approach above, but the big downside to this approach is the
fact that, ultimately, such principles have to come from SOMEwhere, and
in a very democratic ("mob rule") and consensus-driven environment there
is little hope that the guiding principles will be decided for the right
reasons, regardless of whether the right principles are chosen for the
most part.  Again, I'll leave upside(s) as an exercise for the reader.

So.  Armed with this semipretentious breakdown of the conditions of the
argument, do you think we might take a more productive approach to
discussing the matter than oblique sniping?

--
Chad Perrin
[ CCD CopyWrite | http://ccd.apotheon.org ]