[WikiEN-l] We aren't here to write an encyclopaedia, are we?

Wed Jan 25 06:22:52 UTC 2006

I have decided to try to clean up the [[List of ethnic slurs]] article -
it's a mess of uncited and apparently unverifiable information.  In trying
to get the ball rolling I have been opposed at (almost) every turn by an
editor whose view of Wikipedia seems to be:

"''Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged defines
an encyclopedia as 'a work that treats comprehensively all the various
branches of knowledge and that is usually composed of individual articles
arranged alphabetically'. Thus, in Wikipedia--the largest encyclopedia ever
created--any knowledge can be included. Stroll by a library reference
section and you will find encyclopedias of agriculture, of computing, of
'slang,' and so on. This article shows just how much encyclopedic Wikipedia
is."

I tried to counter this with policy - WP:V, WP:CITE, and "Wikipedia is not
an indiscriminate collection of nformation" to which I received the
following reply:

"In any case, I'd encourage you not to live your life based on regulations,
because life is too complicated to regulate. To do so makes one a
[[wiktionary:simpleton|simpleton]]. In any case, regulations must be
interpreted, and the consensus of the Wikipedia community appears to be that
the rules should not be enforced. Since you are the first editor I have ever
met to actually try to enforce these rules, you are in uncharted terrritory,
for sure."

While this editor is relatively new s/he is not a total newbie - s/he has
over 1300 edits, been editing for several months.  While I realise that WP:V
and WP:CITE tend to only get a lot of attention in content disputes (the
Intelligent design article being the one where I have seen it most) the idea
that "the consensus of the Wikipedia community appears to be that the rules
should not be enforced" just boggles the mind.  While this editor appears to
live at the opposite end of the world from the AFD addicts, I suspect that
both of these are symptoms of an underlying problem of people who don't
appear to be here to write a high-quality encyclopaedia.  Suddenly I long to
argue with POV-pushers -  I would rather argue the validity of references
than have someone tell me that consensus is that we don't need references...

Wow.

Ian