User:Cullen328/Sandbox/Building analogy

There are at lest three essays that rely on an analogy between writing Wikipedia articles and construction of a house. They are:
 * An unfinished house is a real problem An essay that uses the analogy to make an inclusionist, eventualist argument.
 * Don't hope the house will build itself
 * Don't demolish the house while it's still being built

The usefulness of an analogy is related to the semantic similarity between the words or concepts being compared. Unfortunately, the differences between a house and a Wikipedia article are so major that it must be considered a very weak analogy.

A house is a material object, normally built either by its owners or by professional construction workers. Passers-by do not normally pitch in to build a house, and it would be likely that they would be arrested for trespassing if they tried. Wikipedia, on the other hand, is written by volunteers, and anyone willing to contribute to the project constructively is welcomed and even invited to pitch in.

The construction process of a house is carried out by specialized workers, including architects, contractors, carpenters, electricians, plumbers, roofers, painters and so on. It is completely out of line for a roofer to pour concrete or for an electrician to install a toilet. And building inspectors inspect strictly for compliance with building codes. They are forbidden from doing any actual construction work themselves. Wikipedians are not pigeonholed into specialties,a nd any specialization is voluntary and optional. Our "inspectors", such as new page patrollers, are completely free to make improvements to articles as well as proposing them for deletion.

In most cases, a government permit is needed to build a house, and the house must fully comply with the building codes before being occupied. On Wikipedia, on the other hand, any established editor can begin an article on any notable topic at any time without asking for permission. No team of specialists is needed. Many perfectly good articles are written by one person, although others are free to contribute as well.

A Wikipedia article has no architect or formal set of plans, although the original author usually has some sort of rough plan in mind to start. But any other editor may take an interest in the topic and expand the article far beyond the original idea.

Half built houses are considered failures. There is nothing wrong with stubs or beginning articles on Wikipedia, though, because it can be expected that these article will grow and improve with time.

As they are complex physical items inhabited by human beings, errors in constructing houses can be dangerous as well as expensive and time consuming to correct. A Wikipedia article is nothing but thoughts and ideas and (we hope) facts expressed electronically. Our articles themselves can cause no direct physical harm. Errors in editing a Wikipedia article can be corrected in moments by reverting to an earlier version of the article.