It's been a while since I've even dared to look in on the motley crew of monkey bizness that I'm barreling together here under the monicker of WP:FAR, but then I thought that maybe I should, just in case that barrel of monkeys had accidentally righted itself in the mean time, making me look like a Crying Wolf Boy or something.
Needless to say, I shouldn't have worried — when it comes to exponentially increasing absurdity, Wikipedia never disappoints.
Here's just the first random sample of WP:FARCE that I ran into —
NB. In the current WikiPatois,
PST(S) refers to
Primary, Secondary, Tertiary (Sources).
QUOTE(Slrubenstein @ 27 Sep 2007 UTC 03:29)
As I have expressed, I believe there is always room for improvement, and I have tried to suggest some ways the definitions of PST sources could be improved — and would welcome other suggestions. However, I believe it is essential for this discussion that we all agree that it is inevitable that some Wikipedia policy terms will be ideosyncratic [sic] to Wikipedia and thus require people to (temporarily) "unlearn" (I would say "bracket") their more familiar definitions. I make this as a general point and acknowledge that one can in good faith say "Yes, but this is not one of those times". We can disagree over whether we need to use the words primary and secondary, and we can disagree over how to use them. But I do not think we will get anywhere unless people asknowledge [sic] that unique definitions are sometimes unavoidable and good. I have two reasons, and an example.
Reason 1: our policy must apply to people researching within or about different disciplines, professions, and domains. Thee is no reason to think that lawyers, engineers, historians, and anthropologists would necessarily all use the word "source" (or pick any other important term) the same way — but we need to define it in a way that can apply to any article; in other words, we need a definition that is appropriate not for law, engineering, history, or anthropology, we need a definition that i [sic] appropriate for an encyclopedia.
Reason 2: we are a wikipedia, an necyclopedia [sic] written through a collaboration by diverse amateurs. Our policies must foster effective collaboration. Being diverse amateurs creates challenges and needs not faced, say, in peer-revidewed journals or EB where most authors are all academics and share many conventions, and furthermore what they write is policed by an editorial board or editors (I mean, journal editors, people with power to dictate content to authors).
See — even when talking about peer-reviewed journals, we see that we define "editor" in a way utterly unlike most other people. This is already an example, but not the one i intended (which will follow) but eveytime I contribute to Wikipedia I need to "unlearn" what "editor" "really means" (meaning, the definition I need to live by in my work, if I am to keep my job and advance in my career — I have to unlearn that definition).
Anyway, my point is that absent the kind of editorial supervision of journals and other encyclopedias, we rely on policies — policies take the place of people. So we are going to have policies that may be unnecessary at journals and other encyclopedias, and our policies have to accomplish something that is accomplished through very different means in other context. So it shouldn't surprise us if some of our policies are unique and use words ideosynratically [sic].
Now my real example (though editor is still a good one!): NPOV. most of us are used to this policy and realy "get it" but read the policy and you will see it is written for people who need to redefine what they mean by "neutraility" [sic] to understand the policy. So I have nothing against unique definitions, as long as they are clear and consistent and useful. I realize others may disagree with me that "primary sources" should be one of those words, but I hope we can agree on the general principle. Slrubenstein 03:29, 27 September 2007 (UTC)
Source. Slrubenstein, Wikipedia Talk : No Original Research, 27 Sep 2007 UTC 03:29.
You can't make this stuff up — that's
their job
!Jon Awbrey
This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: