User:Ihcoyc/My most shocking opinions about Wikipedia

This essay is just a listing of various opinions and aphorisms about editing Wikipedia, which I will add to as the spirit moves me.

In Today's Modern World of Change and Complexity

Wikipedia should be written from a viewpoint that ignores computers.

1. But.... computers are important, aren't they? Yes, they are. Over my lifetime, and I remember my first Vic-20 as if it was almost yesterday, computers have gone from being something I never would dream of owning, to where I have a machine on my desktop that carries more weight than the machines I used to pay by the hour to access in text at 300 baud. Now, it seems computers have gone Etch-a-Sketch, and I as usual am slow to adopt. My point is simply this: at this stage in history it's rather difficult to figure what will go into an encyclopedia style perspective about computers.
2. Visicalc is about the only software package that rates a standalone article. Well, maybe that's a bit too strict, but only a little. What I would say is that for a software product or tech business to be notable, they'd have to have the kind of historic significance that Visicalc had.

Notability is identical to a judgment that an article's subject is something worthy of being remembered by a stand alone article in an encyclopedia. Most difficulties that revolve around the concept stem from forgetting this fact.

1. Therefore, notability implies editorial judgment. It can't be turned into an algorithm. We, as volunteer Wikipedia editors, are the people making those judgment calls. We are entitled to do so because we volunteered.
2. Subjective judgment calls are part of the process, as well. There is no point in pretending different.
3. It is therefore also quite possible -- and in many fields expected -- that a potential subject might have been written about by multiple independent and reliable sources without being notable. The question can't be decided simply by a head count. In traditional logic, that is necessary for notability, but not sufficient for notability. The key inquiry, instead, is whether the sources report the kind of durably significant achievement that gets the subject remembered in an encyclopedia.

Damn Furriners

Bombay, not Mumbai. Burma, not Myanmar. Persian language, not Farsi language. Danzig, not Gdansk. Florence, not Firenze. Mao Tse-tung, not Mao Zedong. Saigon, not Ho Chi Minh City, and for the love of God not Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh.

1. Because this is the English language Wikipedia, and we use English here.
2. I find all of these ugly novelties inherently ideological and therefore POV-pushing. We should not allow tinselled foreign potentates to change the English language, no matter how large their epaulets or splendid their gold braid. We should always use established English names of places and people, and if there's a difference we should favor established usage from before 1945.
3. If you doubt this, consider the difference between Saigon and Ho Chi Minh City.
4. Characters that require alt-codes or lookups to type should never occur in the main articles on the English language Wikipedia. Redirect if necessary to a title free from special characters.

This is the English language Wikipedia. Metric units are meaningless cyphers and not English words. They should not be welcome here.

1. If metric units must be used, reckon them out to ten decimal places, the better to display the alleged superior clarity, convenience, and simplicity of the metric system.

Remember Why We're Here

Ideologies favoring "free content" and "open source" have no place here, and not infrequently get in the way of the business of building an encyclopedia.

1. A photo of a celebrity in a role they're well remembered for will probably be more representative and appropriate than a snapshot taken by a fan.