Wikipedia:The role of policies in collaborative anarchy

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia and it goes without saying that our goal is to produce a quality encyclopedia. The question is, how? In the early years of Wikipedia there was no real answer to this question for the obvious reason that there is no one right way; indeed, there may be an infinite number of right ways, impossible to codify. The reason for this lack of a clear and simple answer gets to the heart of what makes Wikipedia different from other encyclopedias: ours is produced through a wiki process — an open, practically anarchic social environment.

In other words, it is not Wikipedia policies that have functioned to assure the quality of the information included in articles — it is our being a wiki community, in which everyone in the world (i.e. people having a wide range of knowledge) can add to the encyclopedia, and everyone in the world (including many people with good judgment) can delete things, that is meant to produce a quality encyclopedia ... this is the whole gamble of the project, the dare to be wiki and have faith that the result will be quality content, that distinguishes us.

Policies have never and should never police content quality, rather, they provide the framework and a safe environment for a wiki community to function. This is why the core policy is neutral point of view: a large heterogeneous community can work together because none of us will use Wikipedia to forward his or her own views, and because people with contradictory views will not paralyze an argument over who is right (who knows the truth, the objective reality). NPOV does this by insisting that we provide an account not of the truth or objective facts but of diverse views. These views must not be our own ... thus giving rise to our no original research policy. Since they must not be our own, they (including views that are synthetic!) must be attributable to some source ... thus giving birth to our verifiability policy. Many people reasonably see NOR and V as two sides of the same coin: do not do x, instead do y. (Whether or not the community comes to agree about this will determine whether attribution remains a policy.)

It is the wiki nature of the project that makes the distinction between "attributed and "attributable" important. Each article is a product of the community, not a single author — because we know that multiple strengths will outweigh multiple weaknesses. I add what I know to an article but of course it is not everything; someone else adds more. I add one view, someone else adds another view. Similarly, I add an attributable claim, someone else adds the attribution — this is the very nature of collaboration which is at the heart of Wikipedia.

In short, policies may help educate newbies as to how to collaborate most fruitfully with others on articles. And policies serve as important points of reference in mediating or arbitrating disputes. But it is our commitment to the open, collaborative nature of this project that distinguishes it: the gamble that a high-quality encyclopedia will be a wikipedia.