User:MinorProphet/Draft subpages/Philosophy of WP

This was occasioned by this discussion at the revered Help Desk. NB All praise.

Who, or what, is an "ordinary reader"? What is our intended audience? Can we hope to serve all comers? Where do we leave it to the genuine, full-time, expert professionals? (Yes, in the refs.) How much would we expect an "average reader" to know? Are we writing for an audience ranging from those who know almost nothing, to those experts who know considerable amounts about any particular subject? Would we hope to leave the experts confident that any particular article is "not too bad, considering?" And the newcomers confident that they have learned at least something?

Answers on a big postcard, please. MinorProphet (talk) 20:38, 8 February 2021 (UTC)


 * Perhaps WP:About might provide some answers. MinorProphet (talk) 00:58, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * You may have touched on the essential psychosis which informs WP. We know what we aren't, but what are we? Why aren't there authoritative sub-editors in charge of various groups of articles, who can bring together the obvious discrepancies in individual articles, and create a satisfying and internally consistent reflection of "what is known"? I know, it's like herding cats. MinorProphet (talk) 20:56, 8 February 2021 (UTC)

(Copied by me, MinorProphet, with permission by from the Help Desk)


 * You can copy/adapt any of my text that you like. As for the lack of authority, despite the fact that we are not an anarchy, my opinion is that we are an anarchy, in the political theory sense which refers to the rejection of hierarchy wherever reasonably possible (wherever "unjust" or "coercive"). I don't think authoritative sub-editors would actually address the cause of any of our issues, which relate to editor motivation, recruitment and retention. I think sufficiently many good volunteers can address discrepancies in a decentralized fashion more feasibly than someone or some group assigned the responsibility of doing so. The Essjay controversy was an early pragmatic reason to eschew assigning authority to editors, given that almost all of us are anonymous. — Bilorv ( talk ) 21:45, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you, and I agree. Sadly, it is now painfully obvious that there aren't, and never will be again, "sufficiently many good volunteers": the likely ones were hounded out many years ago by trolls, imbeciles who couldn't cope with the idea that their pet ideas were wrong, patriotic fuckwits and vindictive assholes who got to be admins, and other assorted twats who remain behind the screens of various committees, privileges of this and that, able to delete WP history at will as if it never happened, etc. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. MinorProphet (talk) 23:40, 8 February 2021 (UTC)
 * I would say that WP is neither anarchy nor its opposite, certainly not a democracy. I would go for a certain leaning towards despotism, perhaps, or even a gathering of petty warlords in the snow, unable to agree on anything except that they don't like each other. MinorProphet (talk) 00:25, 9 February 2021 (UTC)
 * Obviously in the words of the 'surprised' Jimbo (as if he was the "onlie begetter"), WP is a “grand social experiment.” Source: Good Faith Collaboration by Joseph Micheal Reagle Jr. Depends if you like being part of an experiment. Am I merely one of the drooling Pavlovian dogs? Woof? MinorProphet (talk) 01:58, 9 February 2021 (UTC)