Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not/Archive 2

message: 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)
:I don't see it as an exception at all. Rather, I see it as an example of "Every good encyclopedia article has a dictionary definition at its head." The number articles start as dictionary definitions with bulleted lists and gradually grow to add commentary and insight into each number, to draw correlations between its mathematical and extramathematical properties. Given time, each article on the integers from 1 to 1001 will become an invaluable reference not only to number theorists and math aficionados, but to anyone who has to choose a number for a specific purpose. Anton Mravcek 16:07, 23 Feb 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number article exceptions 

message: 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:
#Instructions. Wikipedia seeks to be informative, not instructional. Therefore, things like how-tos, recipes, and other types of information that provide instruction on something are not appropriate on Wikipedia. They are appropriate, however, on Wikibooks, and articles that contain only instructional material should be moved to the appropriate area on Wikibooks. It is possible that information about instructions are appropriate on Wikipedia, but it should be presented in the indicative mood, and not the imperative mood that so distinctively marks instructional material.
I know the wording is a little weak, but it's my first attempt.
--Nohat 22:57, 2004 Feb 23 (UTC)
:Wikipedia includes articles on procedural knowledge as per Wikipedia:How-to. Not sure if this helps you decide if you should include an IKEA how-to. -- User:
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)
replies: text: See meta:MediaWiki User's Guide and Wikibooks. --mav 05:40, 23 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Informational not instructional 

message: # Wikipedia is not place to form a consensus of opinion, but instead a place to form consensus of fact.  Often these facts are about people holding opinions.  See Wikipedia:NPOV.
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)
replies: text: I agree.  I mainly wanted to express this here so I could point to it from the mailing list.  This point is apropos of a few issue which have arisen there lately.  I didn't think "Wikipedia is not a soapbox" quite covered it.  On the other hand, I can't think of a better concise way to express it.  If someone's got a stroke of genius, maybe we could form a good concensus? :)  --Spikey 17:48, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  moved from meta page 

message: 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]
* I disagree. This is a page about the properties of Wikipedia and its articles- particularly, properties which people commonly (and erroneously) believe that Wikipedia or its articles have, but in fact they do not. Fennec 14:00, 26 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: What What Wikipedia is not is not

message: 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)
thread_title: Products and Product catalogs

message: 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. 
: The community on Wikipedia is considerably less prominent than on any of our competitors: h2g2, Everything2, Encarta, Brittanica. Why are you attacking us, and not them? Martin 22:16, 19 Apr 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Whoa! Wikipedia, as an encyclopedia, is based on a conglomeration of knowledge from hopefully educated sources. In order for these sources to add to the greater body of work in a constructive fashion, they must communicate and compromise on ideas. How is that not a community? Plus, your wording comes across more as a rant than as a sudgestion. Why do you think we need attacked? That is not a basis for compromise, it is a basis for emotional recklessness. --Chaz 20:18, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

text: I disagree with the basic premise.  Wikipedia is a community and, in my opinion, a remarkably effective one.  We may be working on a different definition of the term, though.  May I refer you to Social Software and the Politics of Groups by Clay Shirky and to Wikipedia:replies for some background?  Rossami 22:10, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wikipedia is not a [[community]] or a social club 

message: 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)
thread_title:  (13)... Mere collections of internal links