Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia is for readers

Why this page
The recent discussion I initiated at WP:Village pump (policy) seems unlikely to produce anything further, but it has produced some interesting and helpful observations I think which should be incorporated into an essay at least.

Better would be to incorporate them into a policy. There's strong resistance to restoring the clause to WP:5P and no strong support.

But there are other options. This is a start. Andrewa (talk) 06:53, 29 August 2018 (UTC)

Why people don't want it in 5P1
I've tried to summarise the objections at wp:Wikipedia is for readers, but in that I find them all completely unconvincing maybe I have not done them justice.

Suggestions? Andrewa (talk) 02:38, 19 September 2018 (UTC)

Strange bedfellows
A little action from other editors... thank you! So I reviewed the essay and the previous discussions.

As the nutshell says, fascinating. Some people say it's self-evident, which seems to mean, it wouldn't change anything. Why anyone would object strongly to such a change, when others (such as me) say they would find it very helpful, is not obvious.

Others say it would cause trouble. This seems to mean, it would change things significantly, and in ways that would make it more difficult for ther own personal viewpoints to prevail. Such a change is anything but self-evident.

But the most bizarre argument is that it wouldn't be any help to anyone. Several of us have said we found it very helpful. Are we all nobodies?

There are far more important things IMO. This is mainly just a puzzle to me. I'm hoping that one day, either the opponents will put a case that makes sense to me, or we'll restore the principle. It may not happen. It took eleven years and lots of very heated discussion to move the article on the State of New York away from the base name New York despite having consensus the whole time that it wasn't the primary topic. See wp:NYRM.

But it was worth it IMO. Having the State at the base name just made Wikipedia look silly. (It also led to thousands of mislinkings, but that would also happen if we moved the article on the city to the base name. The current setup with New York as a DAB is the best possible outcome despite being aruably contrary to policy. This was what started me on the now-obsoleted User:Andrewa/Let us abolish the whole concept of primary topic.)

And our removal of this self-evident principle from policy isn't nearly as silly. Andrewa (talk) 04:38, 8 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but..
For readers, by editors, on servers, running software. An ecosystem. Each part of the chain is necessary, and none by itself is sufficient or more important than the others. · · · Peter Southwood (talk): 13:38, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Distinguishing Wikipedia from printed encyclopedias
All encyclopedias are intended for readers and that is obvious. However, Wikipedia is also a social phenomena and its content has surpassed all printed encyclopedias precisely because of the number of editors. I suspect that Wikipedia has several orders of magnitude more editors than any previous printed encyclopedia. Thus, not only is there much help for new readers, much help has been expended to help new editors (and encourage readers to become editors). WP:Be bold. Dpleibovitz (talk) 00:04, 19 December 2022 (UTC)