Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2022-10-31/Serendipity

It's very weird to me to see the Signpost publishing these rambling, unhelpful "articles". This isn't a print publication, it doesn't need filler material, which is all I can see this as. Beeblebrox (talk) 17:21, 1 November 2022 (UTC)


 * I, in contrast, like it. Informative, no. However, I found confusion over this point at edit-a-thons where my students were journalists or, even more, scientists. Eh? The right way is start it, get some help with it, finish it, publish it, and it's done and it's beautiful or it isn't, and that's what the world sees forever. No, in Wikipedia we may keep the draft awhile in the relative obscurity of a page that Google doesn't look for, but then publish when it's reasonably acceptable and all your friends, enemies, and strangers will swoop in, pick it apart, put it back together, and that's what most the world sees except that it keeps changing a few times an hour or year or whatever, so it's never actually finished. Weird, from the POV of someone familiar with the normal course. Jim.henderson (talk) 22:14, 4 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Sheesh. Way to model wikilove, Beebs. Herostratus (talk) 23:50, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

A couple of comments. First, about Maria Ivanka -- Tip of my hat to another chess editor. I actually crossed paths with Ivanka at the 1982 National Open (in Texas), I coulda helped you with that photo, if I had been watching.

Anyone can edit Wikipedia, but what it doesn't say is, anyone can stomp on anyone else's edit in Wikipedia. So Wikipedia doesn't have rules about who can edit, but it does have rules about how editors can behave, and there is actual enforcement; not something you read a lot about, but it happens a lot. Bruce leverett (talk) 16:17, 5 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Thanks @ for your interesting and humble article. I very much agree with you that sometimes it's the way articles mutate over time in response to feedback and later reviewers/contributors that makes WP beautiful; and as you mention it's great to see the content that one adds be amended over time - definitely contributes to the richness of my personal experience. Regarding Beeblebrox above, I really like these short form articles; after all, length is no guarantee of quality in any format that I can think of. Tom (LT) (talk) 06:51, 6 November 2022 (UTC)