WIki Philosphy
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If you want to understand my Wiki Philosphy, a lot of it is on display here (comments welcome). In essence, I think we're too quick to delete content and bite the newcomer, but we do need to hold fast to our core principles.
Personal Attack Pages
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I've been watching some of the cases on RfC and RfAr (and, to a lesser extent, VfD). The thing that leaps out at me is that these pages seem to be taken as general exceptions (and possibly reversals) of the usual rules of no personal attacks and assume good faith. People suddenly feel free to provide negative characterizations of each others' behaviour. I can see the argument that this is necessary for these pages to operate, and I guess I can see the argument that people need some outlet for this sort of thing, but I'm left with a sense of disquiet.
Typically, the bad feelings, flipping the bozo bit, and slanging matches will gradually escalate on article talk pages, and boil over into RfC's and RfAr's. However, unless they end up with one party disappearing (say by being banned), then the disfunctional editor relationships remain, possibly worse than before.
No, I don't have a magic answer.
Experts
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Wikipedia is unwelcoming to experts who say "I am an expert and therefore you must accept what I say at face value." Wikipedia loves experts who say "I am an expert, which is why I know what the best reliable sources are to support what I say, and here they are." … If you're not willing to (1) Write to a popular audience and (2) Support your writing with citations from reliable sources, it really doesn't matter if you're an expert or not, because you're of no real use to us, go write an academic paper.
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| — Beyond My Ken, WP:AN
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Authoritah
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Disobeying authoritah should never be the reason, in itself, for any actions here - we should always be considering the underlying reasons behind any sanctions that might have been imposed, and trying to work out what would be the best overall result for Wikipedia when deciding how to deal with sanctions-busting.
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| — Boing! said Zebedee, WP:ANI
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