Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 12:38, 7 November 2006

Evaluation

Hmm, while having a triumvirate (I mean trifecta) of policies to guide us is very nice in theory, I'm not sure it delivers what it promises.

Original research could very tentatively be described as following from NPOV, for example, but deletion explicitly does not deal with neutrality of topics (POV forks are the rare exception, as this are indeed blatant violations of NPOV); most of what goes on as deletion has nothing to do with being neutral, but with making sense, or respecting copyright. Similarly, style advice on neutral writing obviously follows from NPOV, but the rest is just rules we've picked because we've found them to work in most cases—this has little or nothing to do with NPOV. Claiming that all of this follows is not very enlightening. Misplaced Pages is an NPOV encyclopedia—some things follow from the "encyclopedia" part, not the NPOV part. Britannica does not claim NPOV (though it would love to be seen as "objective", of course, whatever that's supposed to be), but it arguably has style and verifiability and all that jazz. Encarta... no, let's not lower our standards like that.

Likewise, implying that consensus follows from everyone not acting like dicks (as opposed to voting) seems to require a very strenuous line of reasoning. You'd have to turn "don't be a dick" into "don't put your own interests ahead of the encyclopedia". In this form, you could conceivably claim this as the root of all social policy, although it's worth pointing out that the individual rules (stay cool, assume good faith, no personal attacks) are individual inventions: they prop up the policy, but do not follow from it—rather they follow from things observed in practice to work better than their alternatives (edit warring does not improve articles more than staying cool; assuming bad faith does not match reality; being rude is less likely to keep discussion open than being polite).

Ignore all rules, finally, is the most special rule we have, because it emphasizes the fact that, in spite of all trappings of order and regularity, this is still a wiki, and everyone is fundamentally free to act as they see fit (notwithstanding that every action has consequences). Does "be bold" follow? Not quite. IAR does imply you should be bold rather than do nothing for fear of disturbing an imagined balance or breaking rules you haven't yet seen applied, but it does not encourage you to edit outright. "Be bold" does. Without "be bold", people could talk endlessly over changes without ever implementing them, rules or not (and they do!)—IAR says nothing about that. IAR is the speed boost you need to get over hurdles; BB is what gets you moving in the first place.

Am I overanalyzing it? Of course! I don't suggest you start seriously thinking about it now—that this page presents exactly three cardinal principles from which to have everything follow is the appeal, not that everything lines up just right. JRM · Talk 21:53, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

Yeah, JRM, you're way overanalyzing things. Notice that these are only suggestions, and the first two should be interpreted in light of Misplaced Pages:Ignore all rules. The whole idea is that Misplaced Pages policy is far too complicated, and, by gosh, wouldn't things be a lot better if everyone just understood a few basic ideas and was nice to each other for a change. That's also why these aren't policy suggestions. It's a rough philosophical framework. Misplaced Pages is a state of mind.-- Seth Ilys 05:34, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Sure. I just compared it to mine and wrote down the differences. If it works for others, then it works for others. You can even adopt it as policy for all I care—I disagree with the structure, but of course the individual suggestions are fine. Then again, I'm not in the audience; I have no problem working with a lot of rules in the background, nor with determining when not to apply them strictly. JRM · Talk 10:43, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

Additional note: While NPOV doesn't follow from us being an encyclopedia (although our style conventions sorta do), it is a basic stylistic policy. "Don't be a dick" doesn't necessarily follow from us being a community; there are plenty of marginally functional communities where people are dicks to each other all the time. But we think that these are generally good ideas, and we take them seriously, but not too seriously... so if you're not enjoying yourself most of the time on Misplaced Pages, you probably shouldn't be here, and if you don't follow these rules, you don't have to. (Adopting WP:IAR recognizes other people's right to do the same.) - Seth Ilys 05:43, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

IAR is a paradoxical rule because you cannot apply it without understanding why you would need to apply it, and if you can do that, you don't need IAR as a rule in the first place. Which is probably why it's so appealing. JRM · Talk 10:43, 2005 Apr 30 (UTC)

From above and from below

This is an independent observation and shouldn't be on this talk page, but since I got it while writing the above, I'm going to stick it in just to prove I can ignore all rules and hijack talk pages for my own personal drivel whenever I want.

There is a big difference between NPOV and not putting yourself ahead of the encyclopedia (or not being a dick, if you prefer). The former is a given, imposed from above. Right or wrong, this is how Misplaced Pages works; if you don't like it, you're free to fork, but Misplaced Pages itself won't budge. The latter is not imposed, but trickles up from below. We codify this in policy to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. There were times when each of these was not policy, and Misplaced Pages worked—but as it grew, so did the opportunities for engaging in unproductive behavior with others, and it needed to curtail some of it to prevent efficiency from dropping off too far. Again: I stress that without such policies, Misplaced Pages would still work (this is important, because you'll often hear people claim that Misplaced Pages would explode without additional rules—this is not true, IMO; Misplaced Pages will work without them as long as everyone is still convinced it should be an NPOV encyclopedia). Productivity would just go way down without these basic rules, but it wouldn't drop off to zero.

And now, by Jimbo, I have to go edit some damn articles, because if I gaze at my navel any longer I'll go blind. JRM · Talk 21:53, 2005 Apr 29 (UTC)

Quick thoughts

Nice idea. I agree that the first two principles are fundamental to how Misplaced Pages works, but not convinced about the "bedrock" nature of the third. I'm also not at all clear about a couple of the corollaries: how are style conventions (for example) meant to flow from NPOV? — Matt Crypto 01:36, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Matt: They don't strongly follow, because we've ignored all rules in drawing corollaries, except of couse for common sense, which is a corollary of WP:DICK, which is one of the rules we aren't ignoring because ignore all rules tells us that we have to ignore that rule too, so there have to be at least some rules we don't ignore. Are you seeing how this works yet? Besides which, the third is only a suggest policy for personal action, rather than being foundational. We must have freedom to act as we see fit, after all. -- Seth Ilys 05:34, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Thanks

Seth, I just wanted to say "thank you". This is a very well-put document, and perfectly accurate. Thanks.

James F. (talk) 23:43, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Seconded. Just linked it on my userpage. - David Gerard 14:38, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

UC's changes

Uninvited Company's changes have greatly improved this page, IMO. But now shouldn't User:Seth_Ilys/Trifecta be updated to include these changes? I am reluctant to do it because it is in someone's userspace, though. Taco Deposit | Talk-o to Taco 23:38, July 24, 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted the change replacing WP:IAR with WP:BOLD. BOLD is not a substitute for IAR, and IAR more clearly describes the attitude that Seth, myself, and others who subscribe to the Trifecta believe in than does BOLD. (For example, WP:BOLD doesn't describe our common dislike of instruction creep as well.) After a discussion on IRC, I've decided to leave the replacement of "don't be a dick" alone; while I still like that formulation better, it does break WP:BEANS and it is taken the wrong way by many people. "Be civil" isn't quite as catchy, but it'll have to do. Kelly Martin 15:36, July 27, 2005 (UTC)

I prefer Don't be a dick - it is fundamentally true, and gets the point across. Looking through the comments above it's clear the original three choices were very popular. Dbad also survived the meta RfD, by the way. Dan100 (Talk) 14:58, July 28, 2005 (UTC)

WP:DBAD

Everything old is new again

Apparently Kosebamse had it over a year ago: . Just stumbled across this again. Mindspillage (spill yours?) 20:17, 14 September 2005 (UTC)

Re: Don't be a dick

Do we have to call it that? While I realize that Misplaced Pages isn't censored for children, the trifecta could be a bit cleaner. I think the policy would have more power if it was a bit more appropriate in that regard. McKay

What do you suggest as an alternative? --JWSchmidt 14:23, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Good question, well, you could chose a contraposition, like "Be nice" or "Choose the Right", or something a little less mean, "Don't be a jerk" or "Don't be mean" It happens to be a corollary of Misplaced Pages:Ignore All Rules. You could pull the definition: "Don't be a highly contemptable person" Following links around, we could do something like "Don't be a hinsist" or something like that." We already have a page at "don't be unpleasant." McKay 06:14, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

I agree with you McKay. The idea is good, but the language to convey it (dick) is immature. Improves community while subtly detrimental to community at the same time in my opinion. --ElectricEye (talk) 08:56, 29 April 2006 (UTC)

I strongly agree with rewording it to "Don't be a jerk" or "Don't be mean". (though, according to m:Don't be a dick, dick was originally itself a euphemism for "fuckhead". so at least we've improved past that, and also have precedent for rewording) --Quiddity 17:29, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

I'm not usualy one for censorship and am certaily not afraid of strong language but seeing the word dick used offended me a little in the way that it insults the spirit of the poject DJW2tone 15:30, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

I think the issue is less the offensiveness of the term per se, as the presence of an uncivil term in the title what's supposed to be a call for civility (among other things), which leads to its popularity as a "clever" way of calling someone a dick (or fuckhead, or jerk, whichever is chosen). That the page itself points out (to paraphrase) that one would be a dick to go around calling people dicks seems to prevail not. (Or maybe it'd be much worse were this not there, who knows.) As it's a metawiki page we're discussing it in the wrong place, of course (unless what's at issue is whether it's linked to/what's linked to). Alai 06:41, 17 September 2006 (UTC)

As far as I'm concerned any rewording would do. I was recently a target of such personal attack, in which someone poked the WP:DICK at me. While in theory such remark could perhaps be defendable (I didn't call him a fuckhead, I merely noted he might have violated WP:DICK), the difference is close to none. Any commonly-acceptable non-offensive term would do. //Halibutt 12:38, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

And a userbox to go with it

It's really pretty simple: → Remain neutral ← → Don't be a dick ← → Ignore all rules←

I created this userbox. Feel free to use it. -- Michalis Famelis 23:06, 26 January 2006 (UTC)

The userbox looks great! --Siva1979 03:41, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

Merge discussion

I'm asking for feedback on some merge-related suggestions, please come give input at Misplaced Pages talk:Simplified Ruleset#Merge suggestions?. Thanks :) -Quiddity 22:09, 2 June 2006 (UTC)

Fundamentally

I think WP:V is more fundamental than WP:NPOV, because if a fact is objective and verifiable, it's hard for it to be biased. NPOV is a bit unclear to take as the iron-clad base, but they both aim for the same goal of including only objective knowledge in an unbiased fashion. Maybe it's just me not liking to push it to secondary status. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:04, 15 October 2006 (UTC)