Wikipedia talk:Why Wikipedia is so great: Difference between revisions

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Funny, this page strikes me as a gratuitous self-congralulatory one. Not to mention opinionated-who can tell the tell articulateness and intelligence of contributors-

to me an entirely subjective judgment.

It behooves me to mention the large amount of pages that are cut and pasted from other free domain sources that are merely refactored at best but rarely updated. I would not count these at all, in the so-called unprecedented growth of pages here. Refactoring is neither an indication of intelligence or articulateness. This reminds me of the days when companies actually gave intelligence tests to potential employees to weed out people too "bright" for a monotonous routine jobs. BTW, this is no longer legal. If this content is moved to a linked talk or opinion page, I will consider that proof of my point, and worse.

At present, many wiki articles are of high enough quality to be the basis of a reviewed encyclopedia.

Given enough time, many many more will follow.----

I said:

"If this content is moved to a linked talk or opinion page, I will consider that proof of my point, and worse."

You did exactly what I feared and have surely proved my point to me. And as the ultimate detector of bias and defender of non-bias, I am more than disappointed in your action.. It appears you don't care, enough to either have read my whole statemnt or, if you did consider this remark I just quoted, you did not have the courtesy to explain why my remarks are opinion, while the page I originally added them to is fact. Such is life.

Well, basically, you're confused, and many of us no doubt don't want to take the time to try to unconfuse you, particularly because you sound like you're the sort of person, or in a sort of mood, or whatever, such that you would be very hard to unconfuse. Anyway, there is a basic confusion you seem to be laboring under: you think that why Wikipedia is so great is intended to be, and will be understood by most people to be, a statement of fact rather than opinion. This is false. In fact, it is so obviously false that that's probably why no one wanted to take the trouble to point it out to you. In this case, the page isn't in the encyclopedia; it's about the encyclopedia. So why should you expect it to be fact-stating (as encyclopedia articles are) rather than opinion-stating (as they are not)? You fail to understand that the purpose of why Wikipedia is so great is, essentially, PR; like much PR, a lot of it is stated with tongue in cheek and with cheery optimism. And there's nothing wrong with that, and if you think there is, you're wrong. :-) This also explains why it has the self-congratulatory tone it has, but it also explains why it isn't gratutiously self-congratulatory. It serves its purpose admirably (if I may say so myself).

As to your point,

It behooves me to mention the large amount of pages that are cut and pasted from other free domain sources that are merely refactored at best but rarely updated. I would not count these at all, in the so-called unprecedented growth of pages here.

I find this confusing. Why not include them in the growth of pages? They're part of Wikipedia, aren't they? We aren't embarrassed by those pages. Do you think we should be? We're glad they're there. We wish more people would add such pages.

It seems to me you're taking all this much more seriously than we do. Consequently, your reaction seems strangely out of place. --LMS

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-Well, basically, you're confused, and many of us no doubt don't want to take the time to try to unconfuse you, particularly because you sound like you're the sort of person, or in a sort of mood, or whatever, such that you would be very hard to unconfuse.  Anyway, there is a basica confusion you seem to be laboring under: you think that [[why Wikipedia is so great]] is intended to be, and will be understood by most people to be, a statement of fact rather than opinion.  This is false.  In fact, it is so obviously false that that's probably why no one wanted to take the trouble to point it out to you.  In this case, the page isn't in the encyclopedia; it's ''about'' the encyclopedia.  So why should you expect it to be fact-stating rather than opinion-stating?  You fail to understand that the purpose of [[why Wikipedia is so great]] is, essentially, PR; like much PR, a lot of it is stated with tongue in cheek and with cheery optimism.  And there's nothing wrong with that, and if you think there is, you're wrong.  :-)  This also explains why it has the self-congratulatory tone it has, but it also explains why it isn't ''gratutiously'' self-congratulatory.
+Well, basically, you're confused, and many of us no doubt don't want to take the time to try to unconfuse you, particularly because you sound like you're the sort of person, or in a sort of mood, or whatever, such that you would be very hard to unconfuse.  Anyway, there is a basic confusion you seem to be laboring under: you think that [[why Wikipedia is so great]] is intended to be, and will be understood by most people to be, a statement of fact rather than opinion.  This is false.  In fact, it is so obviously false that that's probably why no one wanted to take the trouble to point it out to you.  In this case, the page isn't in the encyclopedia; it's ''about'' the encyclopedia.  So why should you expect it to be fact-stating (as encyclopedia articles are) rather than opinion-stating (as they are not)?  You fail to understand that the purpose of [[why Wikipedia is so great]] is, essentially, PR; like much PR, a lot of it is stated with tongue in cheek and with cheery optimism.  And there's nothing wrong with that, and if you think there is, you're wrong.  :-)  This also explains why it has the self-congratulatory tone it has, but it also explains why it isn't ''gratutiously'' self-congratulatory.  It serves its purpose admirably (if I may say so myself).
@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 :It behooves me to mention the large amount of pages that are cut and pasted from other free domain sources that are merely refactored at best but rarely updated. I would not count these at all, in the so-called unprecedented growth of pages here.
-I find this confusing.  Why not include them in the growth of pages?  They're part of Wikipedia, aren't they?  We aren't embarrassed by those pages.  Do you think we should be?  We're glad they're there.
+I find this confusing.  Why not include them in the growth of pages?  They're part of Wikipedia, aren't they?  We aren't embarrassed by those pages.  Do you think we should be?  We're glad they're there.  We wish more people would add such pages.