Talk:Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies/Archive 1

New dichotomy: Egalitarianism vs Hierarchism

I am suggesting adding this new spectrum which describes how much of regulatory restrictions does a Wikipedian support imposing? The Hierarchists (or Systematists) advocate too much of such restrictions and basing them on merits like trustworthiness of the editor as a good-intentioned and well-informed contributor on the subject he/she edits. From the Hierarchists' POV, this helps in establishing order by reducing vandalism and misguided edits. The Egalitarianists (or Anarchists) on the other hand advocate using as little as possible of the regulatory restrictions because these from their POV make Wikipedia less open and democratic to the new comers. They argue that fairness is only possible through equality because the merits proposed by Hierarchists can not be easily and safely established. Ahmed Elnagar 12:42, 26 November 2006 (UTC).

Agreed. It should be added. 86.35.40.204 09:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Agree with a slight change. If "Hierarchists advocate too much..." then "Egalitarianists on the other hand advocate using too little..." It just ensures the equality and consistency of the statement if we are setting the two as extremes. JodyB 12:03, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree, but with a better change than JodyB: do not use terms like 'too much/little' instead use 'more' and 'less'. Works like 'too' which are emphatic have no place due to NPOV. Making the terms equivilent is great, but to say that either dichotomy is too extremist is wrong. Dichotomies represent directions and not extremism, and even extremism is not necessarily 'too much' or 'too little' as those are matters of opinion. Tyciol 20:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Subdichotomic alternatives

Systematism and Anarchism were concepts listed in parenthesis/brackets by Ahmed above, I think it would do to discuss the two separately and whether or not they are synonymous here. There are currently User associations based on both of these, so members of both could be invited to offer input on this concept and the inclusion of all four of these terms in this article. Tyciol 20:04, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Deletionism/Inclusionism/Mergism

It seems to me the biggest and most visible conflict is the deletionism/inclusionism/mergism one -- is there a reason that one's not covered here? Wikipedia:User:Ummit 16:26, 24 August 2005 (UTC)

I totally agree. They are listed in the box on the right, but no brief summary of them is provided in the article (which was actually what I was looking for when I pointed people to it!!) --RealGrouchy 07:09, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

It looks like the summary was added, great work! That said... mergism doesn't directly conflict with deletionism or inclusionism, it's actually a 'best of both worlds' sort of thing. It should be removed and if one wishes to discuss conflicts regarding Mergism its opponent would be splittism or separatism. Tyciol 20:13, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

NPOV

I have a different view on the achievability of NPOV. I say no one user can write NPOV on a contentious topic, if they have enough knowledge about it to write at all. However, I believe NPOV can be and is achieved when an article is written by several different users with contrasting POVs. Seahen 17:10, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

I just created Semi-Factionalism. It pretty much says just that. Can somebody edit it for me? I've never actually made major changes to an article. Maybe if somebody edits it for me it'll make what I wrote better. ;-) 209.195.102.143 19:46, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Just added "Community View" to the Neutrality section, also. 209.195.102.143 19:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

I tried creating a link to this, but the is not currently a 'community view' section in the Neutrality section, which I did make a link to. Which section is it under so I might link it appropriately? Tyciol 21:01, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Ostracism - the anti-Wikimedia philosophy

The practice of Ostracism in all of the Wikimedia projects, especially in the Wiktionary and Wikipedia projects, has an extremely negative impact on both intellectual and financial contributors and I would imagine on their contributions as well. Ostracism is the practice of nothing more than calling a contributor a troll or making a comment such as Don't feed the trolls. Rudeness and arrogance are not what the Wiktionary or the Wikipedia are all about yet the practice of Ostracism is in full swing. I propose therefore that it be uplifted from the deep dark quarters of the dungeon guards and be given its proper place in the list of Wikimedia philosophies so that it can recognized for what it is and accepted or rejected by those of a like or differing mind. I make this proposal because Ostracism is being practiced to its full extent and its existence can be neither hidden or denied. -- Pragmatist 14:38, 6 May 2006 (UTC)

Obstructionism

I have encountered what I consider an unacknowledged form of wikipedian - the Obstructionist. The Obstructionist has neither a particularly Inclusionist nor Deletionist philosophy as an editor. In fact they likely make very few contributory edits at all; their entire wikipedia existence seems to be simply obstructing anyone from making edits that do not support their POV. It is kinda like WP:OWN but at least someone who is owning an article might be actually creating in it. The Obstructionist views themself as a Gatekeeper, some sort of "super-editor" (as in supervising editor).

Everyone here has a POV and the more we care about an article, the stronger our POV is likely to be. Our duty, however is to set aside our POV to a degree and, while no-one should expect us to espouse the opposite POV, we should write what we know (or feel) to be true from an NPOV perspective (with citations, of course). That is all anyone can ask of any of us, IMO. The Obstructionist is dedicated to thwarting that by reverting any edits that do not clearly support his/her POV. What do you think? Have you run into this fellow? Should we include it as a "Conflicting Wikipedia philosophy"--Justanother 03:49, 3 October 2006 (UTC)

What would be the opposite of obstructionism though? It needs an opposite, something it conflicts with. Tyciol 20:11, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Question

What philosophy is believing that the spirit of wikipedia (or other projects) is more importent then the sum of all policies and guidelines? --wikipedia:user:Honeymane

It's more than a philosophy; it's an official policy. Superabo 04:05, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Even so, its existance as a personal philosophy should be named. My first thought is perhaps Ignorism but that sounds a bit depricative so one might possibly further clarify by creating a w:portmanteauic name like Ignorulism. Furthermore, some people may hold an opposing philosophy to this, counter to the established policy, causing them to protest Wikipedia policy and in some unfortunate cases, become vandals or bad editors. I would imagine that some members of the Society for a Dictatorial Presence might hold a different philosophy for example. One also has to recognize that having an explanation of the spirit is dependant upon policies which keep the explanation where people can see it, and guidelines in regards to maintaining and enforcing the spirit are inherant to its explanation. Tyciol 20:58, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

HiStandardism vs. LowStandardism

This is to go to the adminship part; what do you think? There is a debate between "HiStandardists", who believe that only extremely experienced editors should become sysops, and "LowStandardists", who believe that most editors are experienced enough to become admins and help, even with lesser tasks.

HighStandardism

• Administrative duties are extremely difficult and require a lot of experience.
• Administrators should have a considerable amount of edits, well distributed across the mainspace, talk pages and community pages.

LowStandardism

• Basic administrative duties can be performed by most editors and do not require a lot of experience.
• Administrators need not have a specific kind of contributions, as they will help out when they receive the tools. --Orthologist 20:09, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Oops! I didn't see your proposal here, Orthologist, & added my own take on the different sides. Besides the three groups, I see our major differences as lying in the titles & on the emphasis of the two opposed philosophies. I don't know if my third philosophy actually has been formally expressed, but I detect a school of thought that is different from the others. On the one side, the "no big thing" philosophy implies that almost everyone should be an Admin, while the "janitor" approach would restrict Adminship to a select few. On the other, the "elitist" philosophy expects Admins to behave in examplary ways, while the "janitor" approach does not. -- Llywrch 20:01, 25 March 2007 (UTC)

Let me see if I get it right: "NBT" -no big thing- is LowStandardism, "Elitism" is HiStandardism and "Janitorism" is the middle ground. NBT says that almost everyone should be an admin, Janitorism means that a moderate amount of users should, and Elitism has rather stringent standards one must accomplish in order to become a sysop.--Orthologist 15:05, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I think it would be best to avoid the use of -isms created by more than one word as a root if there are possible alternatives. Currently we have statusquoism, sysopism, and while it might possibly be classified as a prefix rather than a first word, the wiki in wikiPacifism and wikiWarrior. If there is no alternatie simpler term, then all of these should follow some sort of similar format. Currently the 'q' in statusquo and the 'o' in sysop remain lowercase. I think it would be better for the two standarisms to follow this example, and we should also edit the two kinds of edit warring behaviours to match this as well. Since they originated with upper case it would be fine to maintain them as redirects but officially, lowercase and only having the first letter as uppercase as part of a title, is more consistant and aesthetically pleasing with the rest of the article. Elitism is a fine alternative to HiStandardism (I especially dislike that one since 'Hi' versus 'High' can be disputed) but I don't think NBT should be used, since it also has an upper-case problem and is also an acronym which confuses readers who do not know what it stands for and forces them to read about it, something the other terms do not necessitate. Tyciol 20:26, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

WOW

Pretty much I just can't believe this is an article. Wow. So much for Darwikinism? Jjmckool 01:05, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

If you wish to use Darwikinism to attack the listing and explanation of Wikipedia/Wikimedia philosophies, that is permissible, however so long as they exist as individual articles as well as Category:User philosophies and Category:Wikipedia philosophies collected into Category:User associations an article which explains them and their interactions is very valuable. I would even suggest it be linked to and summarized in the content of the Category pages of the former two. I do thank you for bringing this up though because I have become aware in collecting these that User/Wikipedia philosophies are separate issues. Some are personal beliefs of people, the other is the beliefs stated as official for Wikipedia. Creating a 'Category:Wikimedia philosophies' would also be something to consider as a redirect/supplement/replacement for Wikipedia philosophies. This ties into another section in this talk page where changing the name was proposed. Tyciol 20:33, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

A name for this philosophy/rule/whatever you call it?

In wiki, I prefer editing anonymously. The reason is that, in my opinion, it is more important to evaluate contributions on the grounds of their quality then on who wrote them. (By this I don't mean that it's wrong to mention the you are Nobel Prize winner or University Professor of Mathematics -- if you want to. But this should not definitely be used as an argument when discussing some article.) Do we have a name for this in wiki? --Kompik 11:40, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest something along the lines of Anonymism. You may find it valuable to consult the Association of Anarchist Wikipedians and the Association of Apathetic Wikipedians. I think you will find reasons for editing anonymously can be different (apathy as an alternative to your reason, which is pro-anonymity ala /b/). Another variance would be whether this is promoted as a personal stance, or whether one desires or promotes others to adopt anonymous editing. Keep in mind that to be a conflicting philosophy, it needs an opposite to conflict with. In this case, you need a name reflecting someone who uses names. Pseudonymism would be appropriate for people like me who make up names. Some editors, however, create usernames which are actually their real names (or some part thereof) so I don't think it would be appropriate to include such users within pseudonymism.

You would need a specific category for named users. You could base that on the root of anonymous (nonymous) to create Nonymism or one could forgo latin root equivilency and just call it Namism or something. Currently I do not know whether pseudonymism would be separate or included within namism and/or anonymism. Pseudonyms are often used in a way that maintain anonymity, or sometimes people make them easily linked to their real names in which case it is an alternative name. However, it may not be technically considered a name.

Therefore, depending on people's beliefs regarding what a 'name' is, and how someone uses a pseudonym, pseudonymism can be a subsect of both categories, as well as a separate third category. If it is used as a subsect then you could subclassify as "pseudonymic anonymous" + "non-pseudonymic anonymis" and "pseudonymic nonymous" + non-pseudonymic nonymous". 'Apseudonymic' might be an alternative for 'pseudonym' as well, considering the 'anoynm' versus 'nonym' dichotomy. Thoughts? Tyciol 20:54, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

For me, one of the key advantages of wikis, vis-a-vis other sources of information, is that I can examine other edits by the editors of the article I'm reading as a way of assessing their credibility. That's not possible when edits are anonymous. (And, for that reason, I tend to regard anonymous edits as less reliable, by default.) But the identity of the editor doesn't have to map to anything in the real world for that to be useful. It just has to be reasonably consistent within the wiki. --Tedd 06:17, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Title

I propose that this is redundant; Wikimedia encompasses much more than Wikipedia, and many of these "philosophies" apply to others or all of them. --Anonymous Dissident^Talk 14:23, 2 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree, though they're more abundant and apparent on Wikipedia. 74.5.153.187 12:45, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

Agree to both, although this is more due to Wikipedia having more editors and being the most popular wiki in general. It may have nothing to do with it being an encyclopedia itself. Although possibly encyclopedias by their nature invite more conflict than dictionaries and news. But anyway, abundance and apparence do not change the fact that it exists on other wikiprojects under the WikiMedia umbrella as well. I propose we move this article to Conflicting Wikimedia philosophies eventually. There are a lot of redirects and links to this page though, so I would prefer to wait until someone with an automatic link-changer bot comes along so they can edit all links to this page simultaneously with the move. Double redirects do not currently work so it would only become confusing without this. Tyciol 19:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Vigilantism vs. Proceduralism

I cleaned up the section a bit, but it needs expanding. Blast 13:50, 29 February 2008 (UTC)

To encourage expansion, I have created redirects for these terms to this page. Tyciol 19:59, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

WikiWarrior

I was going to redirect this term to this page like I did all the other terms, but I have delayed doing this because I think it should be renamed, and I do not want to create a redirect for a new term which we may end up not keeping. Currently, it is in the Conflicting Wikipedia philosophies#Edit warring section coupled with WikiPacifism which I did redirect. The reason for this is firstly, Pacifism ends in an -ism. This is consistant with the rest of the article. It is also clever because it creates a w:portmanteau from Wikipedia and w:pacifism. WikiWarrior satisfies neither of these. I'm not sure what the opposite for pacifism would be in this case. It would not be activism because activism is the opposite of passivism, which is related but distinctly different from pacifism because pacifism is a doctrine of peacefulness and nonviolent active oppositions.

Mentioned in the wiktionary definition for pacifism is opposition to violence. Violence isn't really the most appropriate word considering pacifism is more of a metaphor since 'war' in 'edit war' is more of a metaphor. When you look up 'violence'/'violent' you get alternative terms like force, action, motion or conflict. There already exists 'actionism' of which definition #3 might be applicable. Violentism/Forcism/Motionism/Conflictism would all be up for grabs for avoiding confusion though. Drawing from the current title 'warism' or 'warrism' maybe, I dunno. Fightism? Just anything but 'wikiwarrior'. It might be better to just use 'Pacifism' and mention 'wikipacism' as a slang term for it. Currently none of the synonyms I found begin with 'p' so it would not create a portmanteau and thus defeat the entire beauty of it by being inconsistant. To help solve this, I've made a request on the edit wars talk page so contributors there can add their insight.

I think referencing w:Pacificism would be very useful for this. It gives us a term for what lies between the two, and also references words like w:defensivism and w:militarism. You also get w:aggressionism/aggressivism and w:assertionism/assertivism Tyciol 21:38, 19 June 2008 (UTC)

Sysopism vs. Rehabilism vs. Politicism

Sysopism vs. Rehabilism vs. Politicism are reconcilable, not truly conflicting. --SmokeyJoe 11:01, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Okay; care to elaborate? —Anonymous Dissident^Talk 13:09, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

Yet Another Philosophical Divide

I've often encountered a philosophical division that I haven't yet seen described here. I've been involved in several editing disputes that revolved around the use of specialized terminology in an article.

My own POV is that articles should be written to be understandable to the lay person. It's important to explain specialized terminology, particularly where it differs from common usage of the same word or expression. But the article shouldn't use terminology that differs from everyday language unless it's unavoidable. I suppose we could call that Laymanism.

However, I have sometimes encountered editors who were subject-matter experts who insisted on using subject-specific terminology even where, to me as a lay person, it seemed less clear, or even misleading. They usually justify this by reference to subject-matter articles and research that use the terminology (which, from the Laymanist point of view, is a circular argument). We could call that Expertism.

--Tedd 06:33, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Structurism vs. Chaoism

Methinks that Wikipedia articles are becoming too standardized and burdened by structuring devices. I cannot see anything positive in navboxes, and even categories seem to be getting out of hand. The proliferation of infoboxes is turning wikipedia into a huge rolodex (which will be eternally incomplete and full of errors). The "standard" devices for tables, references, and templates in general are amazingly baroque, and make editing harder, not easier. (To use {{Cite ... }}, for example, one must write two or three times as much code than one would write in a plain <ref> ... </ref>.) The "spartan" standards for dab pages make it harder for readers to find the right article. And so on.
Methinks that most of that structuring and uniformization has zero or negative value, and Wikpedia would be much more pleasant to read and edit if it was simply a collection of plain articles connected exclusively by in-text links. Knoweledge does not have structure or categories: those things are all in our brains, vices that we inherited from mindless-parrot teachers and four millennia of befuddled thinking.
So, is there a WP faction willing to fight (or at least whine discreetly about) the takeover of Wikipedia by those bloody structurists ? Where poor chaoist souls like me would feel less lonely ?
All the best, Jorge Stolfi 143.106.24.25 06:13, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Anyone have a source for this?

I know a source isn't really necessary on a "philosophical" page like this, but, to satiate my curiosity, is anyone able to support the assertion from the article that:

The epistemology of this view is quite similar to the Buddhist view of language: words are just indicators of conflicts, since if no conflict existed, there would be no need to speak.

I searched the web for this "aspect" of the Buddhist philosophy, and the first result was this page, and I couldn't find any other topical ones. Is this just a bit of OR added in a way that makes it "sound good" (something I'll admit I'm guilty of in essay writing), or is it in fact a Buddhist view of language? It would be nice to know; does anyone here know more about Buddhism and perhaps have a source that covers this (or even alludes to it)?

Peace and Passion 20:56, 30 September 2009 (UTC)