Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 03:01, 2 September 2008

METUS EST PLENA TYRANNIS

The purpose of Misplaced Pages is to create a high-quality, free-content encyclopedia in an atmosphere of camaraderie and mutual respect among contributors.

Nothing which is intuited in space is a thing in itself, and space is not a form which belongs as a property to things; but objects are quite unknown to us in themselves, and what we call outward objects are nothing else but mere representations of our sensibility, whose form is space, but whose real correlated thing in itself is not known by means of these representations, nor ever can be, but respecting which, in experience, no inquiry is ever made.

The things which we intuit are not in themselves the same as our representation of them in intuition, nor are their relations in themselves so constituted as they appear to us; and if we take away the subject, or even only the subjective constitution of our senses in general, then not only the nature and relations of objects in space and time disappear, but even space and time themselves.

What may be the nature of objects considered as things in themselves and without reference to the receptivity of our sensibility is quite unknown to us. We know nothing more than our own mode of perceiving them, which is peculiar to us and which though not of necessity pertaining to every animated being, is so to the whole human race.

Supposing that we should carry our empirical intuition even to the very highest degree of clearness we should not thereby advance one step nearer to the constitution of objects as things in themselves.

— Immanuel Kant, A Critique of Pure Reason

Lessons learnt from wikipedia

I have learnt that wikipedia is a testing ground for life, and that there are many lessons in it. One's wikipedia personality is a reflection of oneself: whether people think ill or good of you is often a reflection of how you have behaved towards them, just like in the world. When Spinoza was stabbed, he kept his jacket with the hole in it and hung it in his room as a reminder. I, on the other hand, wrote this while I was banned (22/5/08) for breaking these rules while editing the relatively high-conflict (as far as I can tell?) cycle of Falun Gong articles , so I need to keep it here as a reminder to myself. Maybe others can also benefit.

1. Abandon indignance

I had already learnt this in real life, but it is one thing to learn it and another to really learn it. This is a big and difficult lesson to learn, because it seems like you need to keep relearning it as new things unexpectedly make your indignance swell. These can be petty, or farreaching and deeply unjust. Sometimes in between. In the latter case, indignance may seem a natural response. But I think we need to do better than that, and step up to a higher understanding of cause and effect. In all cases, it is only injustice as it appears, not as it really is. Sometimes the appearance may correspond with the reality, but we have no way of knowing when. So indignance needs to be abandoned.

2. Treat other people with respect

This is also related to the first point. It is hard to treat people you are indignant towards with respect—that is why you can't afford to become indignant in the first place. Respect is a good word because there are two sides to maintaining it. Firstly, by treating other people with respect you do not belittle them or anger them; everyone deserves to be accorded respect, except 十惡不赦的人. Being accorded respect is everyone's original right as a human. The second reason is that if you do not treat other people with respect it is like you are not treating yourself with respect. The best part of everyone is fundamentally good and kind, and that is the true side. If you lose this then you have lost yourself. There is no dignity there. So if you do not treat others with respect, you potentially harm others, but most fundamentally you harm yourself.

3. Practice patience and be calm

This is nearly the same thing, actually. If you don't maintain an equilibrium, and a happy disposition under any circumstances, then you need to go back and do it again because you are not doing it right. You should also apologise to people you were not patient and calm towards, and then apologise to yourself.

3.1 Faith in wikijustice will itself bring about wikijustice

This is inevitable. Simply by believing in the process and patiently going through the motions, i.e. enacting that faith, will make it real. This may seem obvious, but it can be a distant thought if 1, 2, or 3 are transgressed because of external influences. I understand that this is a natural outcome; if your mind is right then the result will be good, if your mind is not right then it won't be good. In my experience this definitely also applies to the real world.

Now for the practical stuff

How this applies:

• 1RR: just don't revert more than once per article per day, simple as that (except for obvious vandalism like someone deletes the whole page and puts “spiderman rulez”) (all credit to PalaceGuard008 for this concept)
• If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Actually, this means to leave out swipes, snide remarks, and all unconstructive or illegitimate comments when saying something.
• Don't respond straight away if you are worked up. Take a break and come back in 24 hours, then make sure you follow the second asteriks
• Actually consider what other people say, and actually take a step back and consider things from a wider perspective and from the point of view of a high-quality encyclopedia. And be willing to compromise; look at things from other peoples' point of view

I should know myself, but if I break these rules and principles they are based on and do not recognise it, then I would like to have it pointed out to me.