User:Redthoreau/Nuggets of Wiki Wisdom

  Red thoreau's Nuggets of Wiki Wisdom 

First Rule
However ...

""Ignore all rules" unequivocally does not mean "ignore other editors". IAR is for: cases where there is not yet a "rule" but action is necessary, edge cases in which applying a rule exactly as written would lead to an absurd or counterproductive outcome and emergencies where immediate action is needed. — Seraphimblade"

The 5 Pillars
The fundamental principles by which Wikipedia operates are summarized in the form of 5 "Pillars":

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20 Random Quick Hits


-[1]-

-[2]- "Proper capitalization is the difference between ... "I helped my uncle Jack off a horse" and "I helped my uncle jack off a horse""

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-[4]- Try to avoid "Lame Edit Wars"

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On Editor's "Ideologies"

According to William James, every philosophic system sets out to conceal, first of all, the philosopher’s own temperament: that pre-rational bundle of preferences that urges him to hop on whatever logic-train seems to be already heading in his general direction. This creates, as James put it, a certain insincerity in our philosophic discussions.

---> Something to keep in mind during Wiki mental-masturbatory talk page sessions.

-[13]-

Bias Warning Signs

According to Robin Hanson, the following are some warning signs that your opinions may not function to estimate truth:


 * You find it hard to be enthusiastic for something until you know that others oppose it.
 * You have little interest in getting clear on what exactly is the position being argued.
 * You are uncomfortable taking a position near the middle of the opinion distribution.
 * You are uncomfortable taking a position of high uncertainty about who is right.
 * You find it easy to conclude that those who disagree with you are insincere or stupid.
 * You are reluctant to change your publicly stated positions in response to new info.
 * You are reluctant to agree to a rival’s claim, even if you had no prior opinion on the topic.
 * You are reluctant to take a position that raises the status of rivals.
 * You care more about consistency between your beliefs than about belief accuracy.
 * You go easy on sloppy arguments by folks on "your side".
 * Your opinion doesn’t change much after talking with smart folks who know more.
 * You find it hard to list weak points and counter-arguments on your positions.
 * You feel passionately about a topic, but haven’t sought out much evidence.

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-[17]-  A Perfect Example  of why editing Wikipedia takes both a healthy dose of patience and minor dose of masochism ...

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 5 Core Principles of Wikipedia by Levivich 

1. Write what we know is true (WP:V)

2. Don't make up the truth (WP:NOR)

3. Don't distort the truth (WP:NPOV)

4. Summarize (WP:SUMMARY), don't catalogue (WP:NOT)

5. Be decent to people on-wiki (WP:CIVIL) and off-wiki (WP:BLP)

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Jokes can be Helpful

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Proportion of Wikipedia Articles by Category in 2016



"Truth" and "Facts"
'''"Truth is a three-edged sword: your truth, my truth, and the truth." — Kosh Naranek'''

Vacuous Truth

The Good

The Bad

We're Fucked !

... ""Truth" is a big word. Editors who make abrupt claims about either having, knowing, or insisting on "truth", and editors who include the word in their usernames, are probably doing something that does not belong in an encyclopedia, and the more stridently they argue, the more suspicious you are right to be. — Antandrus"

Wise Words by Wiki Users


"If the sources reflect general opinion, and split 90/10, then our goal is for the article to also split 90/10. That is NPOV; treating opinions which have different levels of support as though they had equal levels of support is POV and, frankly, misinformative if not deceptive."

- Nunh-huh, February 4 2009

"I'd like to strongly protest against the perpetuation of that deplorable myth that removal of cited content is automatically vandalism. There may be any number of perfectly legitimate reasons why an editor would want to remove cited content (lack of relevance, undue weight, redundancy, triviality, POV ...)"

- Fut.Perf., May 5 2009

"It's my belief that most productive Wikipedians first arrive at the site wanting to do something that is against WP policy - advance a point of view, cover something that doesn't meet the notability guideline, etc. We also often bring baggage from other Internet sites where the social norms or policies permit different kinds of behavior - social networking activity, attacks, canvassing, what have you. None of this makes us bad people, just people who have not yet fully absorbed the Wikipedia ethos."

- Peteforsyth, January 16 2009

"It is easier to get a sincere 'thank you' for reverting 'ur a faggot' from someone's userpage, than it is for writing a researched, thorough, and referenced encyclopedia article on an encyclopedic topic. The best way to continue as a writing Wikipedian for many years is to be 'indifferent to both praise and blame.' Indifference to praise is a hard task for mere humans, but millions of potential anonymous readers demand it of you, for if you require praise you will burn out."

- Antandrus

"Wikipedia isn't about satisfying readers. It is about correctly reflecting the mainstream consensus in a field, documenting dissenting views as such so long as they are notable ... I am sure that some readers might prefer to read articles that were slanted to flatter their own viewpoints or social groupings but that isn't what an encyclopaedia does ... There is no malice in us reporting the existing historical consensus ... If you still disagree then your mission is not to persuade us here on Wikipedia because we don't put our own opinions in the articles anyway. Your mission is to persuade the serious academics and analysts who make the consensus on the subject to overturn their considered and expert opinions of many decades. If you succeed in this then we will modify the article accordingly, whether we personally agree or not."

- DanielRigal, September 30 2010

"Our social policies are not a suicide pact. They are in place to help us write the encyclopedia ... We need to take due process seriously, but we also need to remember: this is not a democracy, this is not an experiment in anarchy, it's a project to make the world a better place by giving away a free encyclopedia."

- Jimbo Wales, March 10 2005

"Wikipedia's articles are no place for strong views. Or rather, we feel about strong views the way that a natural history museum feels about tigers. We admire them and want our visitors to see how fierce and clever they are, so we stuff them and mount them for close inspection. We put up all sorts of carefully worded signs to get people to appreciate them as much as we do. But however much we adore tigers, a live tiger loose in the museum is seen as an urgent problem."

- William Pietri

"We draw pictures in the sand. Between waves, someone might read a well-written article and be moved."

- Moni3, February 13 2008

"When in doubt do what Jack Churchill would do. If that doesn't or will not work, do what Hunter S. Thompson would do."

- Ian.thomson

"The key turning point was the increase in emphasis on WP:VERIFY. It unquestionably improved the quality of the encyclopedia, but it just as unquestionably changed us from a large community of online users sharing everything they know to a much smaller community of scholars willing to put in a significant amount of effort researching and documenting their use of reliable sources. That was a good thing for producing a more informative and trustworthy reference work, but it was effectively the end of "the encyclopedia everyone can edit", since most people simply can't or won't make the effort to do the kind of research required to make significant edits when every such edit requires an inline citation to a reliable published source. That combined with the exhaustion of many of the easiest topics has inevitably lead to the community shrinking."

- Rusty Cashman

Countering Systemic Bias
""Americans aren't supposed to learn how the rest of the world does things, the rest of the world needs to learn how Americans do things. While we're at it, we should get rid of this Frenchy metric crap and restore intuitive Imperial units (U.S. version, of course). And abolish those funky Arabic 'ciphers' with their 'zeros' for good ol' Roman numerals.""

- Kwami, August 31 2009

Troubled State of the Wiki Nation
" "Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy." — Franz Kafka"

""Think of how stupid the average person is and then realize that half of them are stupider than that." — George Carlin"

Wikipedia isn't governed by the thoughtful or the informed - it is governed by anyone who turns up. There are a small core of people who like playing wiki as an inhouse role-playing game and simply deny real-world consequences that might limit their freedom of action. There are a larger group who are too immature or lazy to think straight. And then there are all those who recognise "something must be done", but perpetually oppose the something that's being proposed in favour of a "better idea". The mechanism is rather like using a chatshow phone-in to manage the intricacies of a federal budget - it does not work for issues that need time, thought, responsibility and attention. I doubt this problem can be fixed - since it needs structural change to decision making - which is impossible for precisely the same reasons. — Scott MacDonald

In short there are too many idiots and too few people prepared to tell them to fuck off. And yes, that is precisely what we should tell them, because anything less encourages endless debates and Wikilawyering. Want to tell the world that Lance Armstrong takes drugs? Fuck off. At least until he has stopped successfully suing the newspapers for saying it. Want to tell the world about the evil world Jewish conspiracy? Fuck off, forever, and never even think about coming back. Want to tell the world how the scientists are all wrong? Fuck off - until it's in Nature, anyway. Want to out someone as a paedophile? Not here. Want to explain how 9/11 is a conspiracy and no plane crashed into the pentagon? Web space is cheap, get some of your own. — JzG

The Wikipedia philosophy can be summed up thusly: "Experts are scum." For some reason people who spend 40 years learning everything they can about, say, the Peloponnesian War -- and indeed, advancing the body of human knowledge -- get all pissy when their contributions are edited away by Randy in Boise who heard somewhere that sword-wielding skeletons were involved. And they get downright irate when asked politely to engage in discourse with Randy until the sword-skeleton theory can be incorporated into the article without passing judgment. — Lore Sjöberg

It makes no more sense to discuss with some users than it makes sense to speak things through with a dolphin. They may be intelligent, but there is no basis for communication. — Hans Adler

Many Wikipedia contributors are out of their element. The foundation of the project is academic publishing, but very few people who are actively involved (or addicted, if you will) have the qualifications to be part of such an environment. The Wikipedia forums (AfD, RfA, FAC etc) are not populated with people who are focused on creating, maintaining and improving an academic publishing environment. They have no clue how to do that, so they make the site into something they can relate to – either a battlefield or a playground. The deletionists and the inclusionists take extreme sides, thus resulting in a constant war of attrition. Assorted clowns who are there for the laughs hang out at ANI and make fun of everyone. A bunch of kids run around in their own private remake of The Goonies. Marketing officers and egomaniacs try to sneak in self-promotional material without being spotted. Everyone else is caught in the crossfire. And those who complain are either harassed or blacklisted. And the stupidity goes all the way up. — A Horse With No Name, Wikipedia Review

Wikipedia, which looks like a reference work to the average viewer, is in fact a bureaucracy given over mainly to arguing. The articles are the residue of the argument, being the last thing anyone declined to disagree about. — Clay Shirky, Here Comes Everybody

Some non-lawyer wiki editors enforce copyright law with such strict interpretations and construe fair use so narrowly that they are harming the free exchange of ideas which Wikipedia stands for. Getting images deleted based on technicalities that you can help fix is not helping humankind or the project. — Milowent

There are those who are about building an encyclopedia; that is our primary purpose, and we're only peripherally about displaying the power of collaborative development or the support of some general "free content community". These goals, however fervently held, are peripheral to the goal of building an encyclopedia. At least one "only free content" advocate compares the cause to other socially obnoxious cranks like vegans. The bulk of the editorship, busy with other tasks, is constantly being interrupted by lectures deploring the environmental cost of meat, nagging about fat and cholesterol, and weeping salt tears over the suffering chickens in their pens. — Smerdis of Tlön

Like any human organization, Wikipedia is in constant danger of becoming ruled by those editors who enjoy ruling more than editing. Administrators need to be reminded that their powers are not earned rights or badges of superiority, but merely tools that will be lended only as long as they are properly used. — Jorge Stolfi

As in the dry season arsonists start fires, so when there is a contentious event on Wikipedia, certain editors will attempt to escalate conflicts, and so enjoy their destructive course. You may recognize the same names appearing again and again in such circumstances. As I have said above, it has become harder to work on articles in the last few years, and it is much easier, and much more pleasurable, for some people to feel the rush and the pride in one's witty put-down of an opponent, than to write or cite or cleanup or reference an article that no one will immediately read. Conflict is as addictive as cocaine, and unfortunately Wikipedia's civility policies only limit incivility among those who respect them in the first place, and who have the personal strength not to need to retaliate. Anonymity is to cowardice what Viagra is to impotence. — Antandrus, Observations on Wikipedia Behavior

A Few Words on Wiki Flaws
" "There are two options in every disagreement, you can agree with me, or be wrong." — Every Wikipedian's inner ego"

IP Edits

3 RR

Deletionists & "Taggers"

Notability ?

Vanity

Requests for Adminship Process

Non-Free Content Criteria (NFCC) Policy

Dicks, Assholes & Fuckwads (Oh My!)
'''"We are blessed to be living in an age when we have a global communications network in which idiots, assholes, and total and complete wastes of fucking human life alike can come together to give instant feedback in an unfettered and unmonitored online environment." — The Onion, "Local Idiot To Post Comment On Internet"'''

Wikimedia's 'Don't be a Dick' Guideline "Don't be a Dick" is the fundamental rule of all social spaces. Every other policy for getting along is a special case of it. Although nobody is empowered to ban or block somebody for dickery, it is still a bad idea to be a dick. So don't be one. If a significant number of reasonable people suggest, whether bluntly or politely, that you are being a dick, the odds are good that you are. Moreover, being right about an issue doesn't mean you're not being a dick! Dicks can be right — but they're still dicks; if there's something in what they say that is worth hearing, it goes unheard, because no one likes listening to dicks.

= Are You A Certified Asshole ? --- a 24-Question Self-Exam by Bob Sutton

John Gabriel's "Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory" deals with the unsociable tendencies exhibited by internet users as a result of the online disinhibition effect. In this hypothesis, Mike Krahulik suggests that, given both anonymity and an audience, an otherwise regular person can become a "total fuckwad". New York University professor Clay Shirky, who studies social and economic effects of Internet technologies, explains: "There’s a large crowd and you can act out in front of it without paying any personal price to your reputation," which "creates conditions most likely to draw out the typical Internet user’s worst impulses."
 * See also --->   What Makes A Fuckhead ? --- an essay by David R. Kendrick

Don't be a Giant Deutschbag
The first 2 signs that an individual no longer has anything intelligent to offer to the discussion ...
 * (1.) - They prove Godwin's Law
 * (2.) - They utilize a Reductio ad Hitlerum

My TOP 10 Antandrus Observations


10. All the virtues and vices shown by humanity as a whole can be found on Wikipedia. Anyone who runs from the community because they cannot tolerate its vices, divisions, and politics, will have to face the same vices, divisions, and politics again elsewhere in life.

9. People who loudly accuse the community of some vice are almost invariably guilty of, but blind to, some variant of that vice themselves.

8. Some trolls and POV-pushers are best fought with a time delay. Let them make their edit; then change it an hour or two later, or even the next day. Trolls are easily bored, and are more likely to go away if you hold your fire for a bit.

7. The very existence of Wikipedia is a massive proof that there are more people in the world wanting to build than to tear down. Were that not true, vandals would have overwhelmed and destroyed us years ago.

6. Troublesome editors waste far more of the community's time than vandals. One who sometimes has good edits, but endlessly bickers, threatens, insults, whines, and is eventually banned, will have taken hundreds of hours from other users who would have better spent that time building the encyclopedia.

5. We're a pretty good encyclopedia, and you will notice it once you back away from the conflict zones.

4. One of the commonest kinds of vandalism is an assertion that something, someone, or somewhere is "gay". This is a reflection of the common, indeed unavoidable, sexual insecurity of male adolescents, who make up most of Wikipedia's vandals. It's as universal a part of maturing as acne; revert and ignore.

3. When you realize that editing an article on a current world conflict stresses you out more than the actual conflict does, it is time to take a break. Having your edits bombed to oblivion with an rvv is not as bad as losing your entire family to a paramilitary raid, and sometimes it is important to think about it.

2. Vandalism in the form of trolling and nasty personal attacks spikes on Friday and Saturday nights, local time. Look at the bright side: at least they're not driving drunk.

1. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. The primary job of Wikipedians is to write it. Everything else is secondary.


 * Shamelessly lifted and extracted from Antandrus' Observations on Wikipedia Behavior

Spoof Banners by Jorge Stolfi
Sarcasm is an unpleasant way of saying the truth ...

"Many people seem to take to the easy route and simply add a tag instead of trying to make the requested improvement themselves ... If you see that something is wrong in an article, why not changing it yourself instead of using a template. The latter is the comfortable way. You tell others that something has to be done while you have an easy time and can watch others do the work. I wouldn't wonder if a new template concerning typos would show up soon. "There are typos in this article, would someone correct them please?" Yes, there are a few useful templates ... But most of them are unnecessary and annoying. — Maxl"


 * Above banners have been shamelessly lifted and extracted from Jorge Stolfi's Templates that I Sorely Miss

Deciphering Edit Summaries
Those edit summary abbreviations usually have an understood meaning ...

For a detailed explanation of these legends along with additional ones, See ---> Edit summary legend

Wiki Policies to Remember  [[Image:Wikipedia Checkuser.png|60px]]
'''"Wikipedia guidelines are like scripture: somewhere in the labyrinthine network of rules, you can find support for any position." — S Marshall'''

Quotes
"Brief quotations of copyrighted text may be used to illustrate a point, establish context, or attribute a point of view or idea."

- Wiki Quote Policy

"Quotations are a fundamental attribute of Wikipedia. Quotes provide a direct source of information or insight. A brief excerpt can sometimes explain things better and less controversially than trying to do so ourselves."

- WP:QUOTE

Do Not _________

 * Attack Page
 * Bad Mouth "Big Brother"
 * Be a Crank
 * Be a Griefer
 * Be a Megalomaniac
 * Bite the Newbies
 * Disruptively Edit

... It only makes Kitty angry


 * Game the System
 * Harass
 * Hold Grudges
 * Libel
 * PANIC !!!
 * Tendentiously Edit
 * Use Jargon

Assessing Reliability
The table below is an overview of indicators for determining an article's reliability ...

Editorial Quality Review
Wikipedia has a variety of systems for article review and improvement. Examples of the processes involved include:


 * Quality-based peer review - where editors who have not been involved in the article are invited to review and comment upon its quality, balance, readability, citation of sources, and other policy-compliance and content issues.
 * Good articles - a system whereby articles can be rated and broadly established as being of reasonable quality, while being commented upon by independent review.
 * Featured articles - a rigorous review of articles which are desired to meet the highest standards and showcase Wikipedia's capability to produce high quality work.

In addition, specific types of article or fields often have their own specialized and comprehensive supervisory projects (such as the WikiProject on Military History), assessment processes (such as biographical article assessment), or are the subject of specific focus under projects such as the Neutrality Project, or covered under editorial drives by user groups such as the Cleanup Taskforce.

Dispute Noticeboards
If your dispute is related to one of the following topics, you may wish to post about it in one of these locations, to get the opinions of other editors familiar with similar disputes:
 * Biographies of Living Persons noticeboard – to raise alerts about problems with a living person's biography
 * Conflict of Interest noticeboard – to raise alerts about possible COI
 * Content noticeboard – for other content issues that do not fit in the above or are of more general nature.
 * External links noticeboard – for questions about external links that are not being used to verify article content.
 * Ethnic and cultural conflicts noticeboard – for issues related to national, religious, ethnic, or other cultural conflicts
 * Fiction noticeboard – for issues related to topics about works of fiction
 * Fringe theories noticeboard – to report theories that may be being given undue weight
 * Neutrality noticeboard – for issues about whether an article is meeting WP:NPOV and WP:UNDUE.
 * No Original Research noticeboard – to ask about material that might be original research or original synthesis.
 * Reliable Sources noticeboard – for discussion of whether or not a source is reliable
 * Sockpuppet investigations – to ask for help in tracking down sockpuppets

A few more Essays

 * Anti-Wikipedianism
 * Avoid Personal Remarks
 * Avoid Threat Mode


 * Bots are Annoying
 * Sarcasm is Really Helpful
 * "The Most Important"


 * The Rogue Admin Cabal
 * The Wrong Version!
 * Vanispamcruftisement

===Find Your Wiki Fauna                 ===

History Belongs to the ...


 "A common insult hurled at dedicated Wikipedia editors is that they 'have no life.' If you write extensively in an out-of-the-way area, you may well become the most widely-read writer in the world on your topic. There are worse ways of 'having no life', such as abusing the few actually useful people on the internet, but those who deliver such insults are invariably tone-deaf to irony."  — Antandrus

The Future of Wikipedia ???


Hopefully NOT !

P.S. here's a userbox
If you learned something above, or found this page of any value, then spread the word.

 New users, simply copy and paste the following text to your page --->   

''' and you will get the following image ... '''

P.S.S. have suggestions ?
I view this page as a collaborative effort - so please feel free to leave suggestions of material for me to add on ---> the talk page. Thanks