Announcements
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Philosophy
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- This section describes my thoughts on Wikipedia, not my social or political inclinations. If you want to get a taste of those, see here.
- I'm usually neutral, except when people vandalize. Then I feel like destroying something, namely them.
- I try to be as diligent as I can, constantly perusing articles that interest me and reverting vandalism or correcting spelling and grammer mistakes.
- I obviously do not support vanity articles, but they are not as big a threat as some have suggested. Holistically speaking, the vast majority of articles on Wikipedia have substantial and encyclopedic value. Size is partly what makes Wikipedia the goliath it is, so I'd just like people to relax when it comes to this matter.
- There is a recurring allegation that the communal nature of Wikipedia forces content through consensus rather than content through fact. Once again, generally speaking this is not a big problem, and study after study has revealed this encyclopedia to be one of the best. More importantly, however, we have to realize that the coalescence and development of human knowledge has typically undergone rigorous argumentation and interpretation in all sorts of fields, from science to history. Many of the topics being debated on Wikipedia are simultaneously being debated by scholars and professionals. Some time ago I had a "scuffle" regarding the result of the Battle of Borodino; was it a French victory, a Russian victory, neither of the two? What was it? If any truth could come from the situation, it is that historians themselves debate that question. Different historians will tell you different things, and undoubtedly our opinions could be formed by familial or national influence. A person reading Western sources on the Battle of Borodino would generally think it was a mild French victory, while a Russian reading Russian sources would disagree. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this. It has always happened and always will happen, and it is one of the few things that makes Wikipedia so strong: it can constantly keep updating the latest research, the latest interpretations, and the latest improvements in that colossus we call human knowledge.
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