From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
[edit] True Beginner
|
|
| band-3 |
This user loves the band Yes. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| respect |
This user respects others' religions and realises not all people wish to follow the same path. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
This user enjoys heavy reading, such as Shakespeare and other dead guys. |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
This user uses Wikipedia as his or her primary point of reference. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Fact: There are no steroids in baseball. Only players Chuck Norris has breathed on. |
|
Hello all, I'm a complete novice with Wikipedia, and have very little time to devote to it. I live in Sydney Australia and work full time as a programmer. My interests are in Christian theology, movies, programming and literature. I have an honours degree in literature and am studying my bachelors in theology. My user name comes from the Yessong "Awaken", my favourite song!
[edit] My Wiki-Philosophy
A science fiction author named Philip Dick once said "Reality is that which, when you stop believing it, doesn't go away." I believe that the purpose of wikipedia is to describe reality, that is, the facts about what is true and not true, as opposed to people's fantasies and opinions. Fantasies and opinions that are widely held can be mentioned as such, but the focus should always be the communication of factual human knowledge plainly and clearly. To this end, I believe that the prominence of weasel language is a bigger problem than systemic bias. Systemic bias should naturally abate as more people get online in other countries and cultures, but weasel language must be actively opposed.
I am not a mergist, but I am sympathetic to the goals of creating a paper wikipedia. Probably my most controversial view that wikipedia should have highlighted, textual, sponsored links at the top of each page, just like Google does. I see nothing wrong with getting revenue from non-invasive, non-graphical, 2 line ads which are marked as being "sponsored links". I do not see how this contravenes the philosophy of wikipedia. I think a 2 line sponsored link would be far more effective at keeping wikipedia going than continual requests for donations. Just my view.
Oh yeah, and I think all the dross about "stable versions" and having a "stable wikipedia" is a terrible, terrible idea. Obviously, to make a paper encyclopedia or a CD-ROM for distribution, you need to go through and remove vandalism first. So do it; I think that that having stable versions makes this process infinitely *more* difficult, because it means you have to go through and find out if any pages have had great updates since the last "stable version" - this process is infinitely more difficult and error-prone than just removing vandalism. Stable versions will add a huge and totally unnecessary layer of complexity to wikipedia, and it contradicts the wiki philosophy that readers are editors, since you'll only see edits after they've been "approved" some faceless committee, or, even worse, voted on (deliver us!).
