Wikipedia philosophy



On deletion

  • Notability is not something that Wikipedia editors should assess; it's a subjective and redundant criterion. The notability bar in Wikipedia should be the verifiability bar, no more and no less. All unverified information must go, and to this end WP:FACT is essential.
see User:Ziggurat/Notability for extended thoughts on this topic.
  • That said, the burden of evidence regarding the verifiability bar lies with the author/s. If an article is inappropriately nominated for deletion, it should be properly sourced, and in those cases is almost always (rightly) kept, regardless of notability. This fact often needs to be communicated to new editors.
  • Articles should be sized according to the level of their verified information: if there is little, the information should be merged into a more general article; if there is much, it should be split into several subarticles. As always, articles must never convey undue weight.

On scope

  • Wikipedia should aim for the most rounded coverage it can of the whole world if it is to achieve its aim of being a source of information for the whole world. To this end WP:BIAS is essential.

On userboxes

  • Bias is a productive description of edits, not of editors. Identification of alignment is not a good indicator of editor bias, so I don't personally use userboxes. Let the edits stand on their own, rather than allowing people to make ad hominem attacks based on the source of the edits.
  • Some people like userboxes, so except where those userboxes can be demonstrated to have directly harmed the production of Wikipedia I've got nothing against them.

On fighting

  • Fighting is Boring. If I seem to be getting too involved in a discussion, please suggest that I let it rest for a while, as the likelihood of two people coming to a consensus on their own often goes down the more they argue. Consider alternatives such as 3O and RFC.