User:Antandrus/thoughts
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This is a page of various thoughts, drafts of thoughts, and drafts of things which may become pages but not in the main namespace. Some of this may end up on Meta: some may end up in the Wikipedia space: and most will just remain here, since I want a place to write without cluttering up my userpage.
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[edit] Redlinks
Redlinks are good. They are how our project grows. I often add redlinks to articles: they are a tempting carrot for newcomers to try out their own hand at editing.
Removing redlinks from articles is bad. Have you ever done any gardening? Removing all redlinks from an article is the equivalent of snipping off the branch of a plant below the lowest viable bud. An article with only bluelinks is a Wikipedia cul-de-sac.
Some judgment is required, of course, in inserting redlinks: consider whether the item is notable enough to merit its own article. If you think there is a decent chance that the redlink could point to an interesting article, go for it, and link it: at worst, it will end up being a redirect to something that already exists.
Complaints have been made that some articles are so full of redlinks that the condition is "distracting." I take this as a sign that the article is in one of the areas of Wikipedia that is seriously underdeveloped, i.e. not a core interest of our median demographic (offhand I'd guess M/23). There really is a lot still to be written here: a lot. We're not there yet. Have a look around art history, ballet, sculpture, architecture; look at the articles on the Shakespeare plays and compare them in depth and detail to articles on Pokémon or video games. This situation is neither terrifying nor disappointing to me, it is exciting; creating new content, for me at least, is the most fun thing about the project.
[edit] Lists and redlinks
Lists are good, since they are the single most useful way to compile redlinks for unwritten articles on a related topic. In this way, and especially in this way, lists are distinguished from categories, which have a fundamentally different purpose: to aid navigation.
[edit] Lists and categories
Categories have not made lists obsolete. Not only can lists include redlinks to articles which need to be written, but they can be annotated. List of Renaissance composers is one obvious example: while every bluelinked name is included in the Category:Renaissance composers category, the redlinked names are not, and some of those unwritten articles involve important people indeed.
The most useful lists are those which are annotated, i.e. each entry consists of more than just a bullet followed by a linked item. In the case of the Renaissance composers list, each name includes dates, a bit of information impossible to store in a category (and someday will include a nationality too, when I get around to it). Consider also something such as List of works by Beethoven, which includes opus numbers, dates of composition, groupings, keys and other information not maintainable in a category.
[edit] Dealing with jerks
There are editors here who are just jerks. Don't worry, it's not a personal attack, I'm not naming anyone, and I will not. This is written as a generality, and as an approach to a philosophical issue. Not everyone learned in Kindergarten to share their toys, and not everyone learns as an adult to get along with other people.
How do you deal with these people on Wikipedia?
The worst are not trolls and vandals--for they do no good editing, and can be quickly booted out, or eventually booted out, usually with the door hitting them on the backside on the way out, with a satisfying *thwack*, and the project is the better for it. I don't mean them. I mean the people who are good editors, who know their topic, who are even experts in their fields, and who can write prose at an encyclopedic level--but who refuse to collaborate, or accept either criticism or correction (for even experts make errors--I certainly do, in the areas of my expertise--no one can keep up with everything in their field). It is collisions with exactly these people that stress out good editors, occasionally causing them to leave in frustration.
Keeping in mind that our goal is to build an encyclopedia which is reliable, well-sourced, and thorough, we should strive to retain people who can do the heavy work of writing expert-level information, and I think sometimes we have to compromise and allow some of these arrogant assholes to edit anyway. Sorry to be blunt, but having a thin skin is a liability here. (I'm not hard-shelled, and I've fought with this issue.) It is worth the trouble to try to persuade the difficult editors to change, but don't hold your breath: the young have an easier time changing (usually it's called growing up), but they are rarely experts: by the time someone reaches middle age, if they are unable to work with others, they probably won't change their style of interaction with other users if approached with the usual pleas to abide by WP:Civility and WP:NPA.
A little "decoction of Seneca and the stoics" here is helpful. Other people's badness is not your badness; and I quote from the noble Antoninus: "What? art offended by other men's badness? teach them then, or bear with them." If they will not be taught, bear with them. It doesn't matter what they think of you; leave them alone; let them edit, as long as they do it well; and remember that retaliation lowers you, and hate corrodes you from the inside.
There's plenty of places on Wikipedia you can still make a difference. Sometimes you have to let go of control of an article you have nourished for a long time, and take a hard look at just how much ego you have invested in your work on that article. It is easy enough to state that we who write the encyclopedia do not own articles, but can you really admit that you don't feel it sometimes?
Letting go can be the greatest of pleasures.
