WikiIndex talk:Policies and Guidelines: Difference between revisions

I was initially under the impression that [[WikiIndex]] had such a policy, not unlike Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy. However, somewhere along the line, Mark Dilley pointed out to me that the mission of WikiIndex does not preclude providing personal commentary on the wikis listed here. I'd link to this comment, but I no longer remember where this took place. Anyway, I think that this choice leaves us open to the edit wars which took place recently, which is why I'm not keen on it. Sticking to the facts is more akin to my way of thinking. --[[User:MarvelZuvembie|MarvelZuvembie]] 04:52, 4 October 2009 (EDT)

:I sorta agree with you, but it is easier said than done. I tried to post some "facts" in the [[RationalWiki]] article. My way of doing that is to quote sources and say who claimed what. Some problems with this are that it looks tacky, often sounds suspicious, and can be very repetitive when everything is something someone claims. More on that [http://lumeniki.referata.com/wiki/WikiIndex_(unwritten)_policies#Verifiability here]. (Another scuffle broke out [[Talk:RationalWiki#Edit_wars|over an ambiguous statement]]. This is where "assume good faith" comes in.) [[User:Lumenos|Lumenos]] 17:26, 7 October 2009 (EDT)

:::If we simply take what is on a wiki's mainpage, I would call this a sympathetic point of view rather than a neutral one. That basically lets the administration of that wiki decide what will be in WikiIndex. I think you may indeed get less edit warring over articles, that way. People might not agree with it but they are less likely to care since they are not protecting "their" wiki from (misleading) criticism. [[User:Lumenos|Lumenos]] 17:10, 14 October 2009 (EDT)

:::I could be wrong but my impression from Dilley is that he is not trying to be the end-all authority on everything here. He was asked to help resolve a dispute but no one really gave him a realistic proposal on how to do that. That is what we can do here. What I'm seeing now is that some editors and admins are demonstrating their own personal policies, that they are following or considering. They may reveal their "policies" here, on other talk pages, or with their behavior. Next we start to join our policies together and form "alliances" ("consensus"). The purpose of "war", as I see it, is to demonstrate who has the power. When a side becomes convinced they will "loose", they usually "surrender" ("agree"). I'm trying to create incentives for people to engage in constructive policy development rather than edit warring, ridiculing, etc. It is up to the administration/owners to decide whether they will support this or allow edit waring and intimidation to determine the content of articles. [[User:Lumenos|Lumenos]] 17:10, 14 October 2009 (EDT)

:Felix and I discussed this in chat (one of the reasons I don't like to use "private" correspondence for these things). One issue we apparently agreed on, is that having a policy that forbids deleting things can be a source of confusion, edit waring, and premature blocking. You might notice how three RationalWiki bureaucrats, you, Nx, and Phantom Hoover, often delete large amounts of work written by others. Isn't it kind of ironic that you would restore the policy that forbids this?... and that you do this by deleting a large amount of work written by others? If you think the most "sensible" version says, "Controversial content should also not be deleted, but debated on the talk pages and/or improved by adding quotations, references, and anything else that may serve as evidence for (or against) it," please tell us how a sensible administrator should react when you delete controversial content? (A few other examples of Huw deleting content that was apparently "controversial" to him [http://www.wikiindex.org/index.php?title=Lumeniki&diff=71068&oldid=71030] [http://www.wikiindex.org/index.php?title=Lumeniki&diff=70634&oldid=70618] [http://www.wikiindex.org/index.php?title=RationalWiki&diff=70039&oldid=70035] [http://www.wikiindex.org/index.php?title=RationalWiki&diff=70631&oldid=70606].)