User talk:Paulbmann
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Hi, welcome to Wikipedia. I hope you enjoy editing and making WP better. Next time you need to move page (like Natural hygience to Natural Hygiene) swing by Wikipedia:How to move a page. I have fixed your cut n paste page move. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 10:42, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
Good afternoon and welcome to Wikipedia. Thank you for you contributions. I read your note on the VfD page and had a thought I wanted to share. On VfD, you said "I thought this was an encyclopedia, without censorship. Freedom of speech ..." While we are an open-source encyclopedia, it is not quite right to say that we are "without censorship."
We are a community and have a number of community-selected and community-imposed rules (which, by the way, are constantly evolving as the community grows and a new reader/editors express their opinions). The application of those rules implies a sometimes surprising degree of self-censorship.
For example, one of our inviolate rules is that articles must be neutral. Comments that bias the article toward a particular point of view are routinely deleted or modified by the next reader/editor to come along. Many have called that censorship. Articles which can not be made neutral are often deleted. Many also call this censorship. In the classic sense, they are right. None of us have the right or expectation that our contributions - our "golden prose" - will remain untouched.
Another is that the articles must be "encyclopedic". That is a very loose term which is still being actively debated but there is general concensus that, for example, an article about myself would be vanity and should be deleted. See Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not for more examples. Many people complain that this censorship and I believe they are right. It is a necessary censorship if we are to remain an encyclopedia and not become a blog, a usenet or a slashdot. Wikipedia is different and unique from other forms and ought to stay so.
Among the What Wikipedia is not]] criteria are guidelines that article topics must be well-known and can not be "original research" (no neologisms or personal theories). Our encyclopedia is best when we report about what other people come up with and try not use Wikipedia as a platform to promote a personal idea or agenda. Controversial topics (such as alternative medicine theories) are generally acceptable if 1) the topic is reasonably well-known (evidence for this claim is often documented on the article's Talk page) and 2) the article clearly identifies the topic as controversial by discussing the controversy in a fair and balanced manner.
Personally, I do not feel that I have the content knowledge to evaluate the Natural Hygiene article under discussion but I would encourage you to take the comments on VfD as good-faith efforts to improve our encyclopedia. I have learned to have a great deal of faith that most of the people who take the time to comment will have the expertise and experience to have an opinion.
I don't know if any of this helps or if this was just my own personal diatribe. In either case, it's probably evidence that I have too much free time on my hands. Again, welcome to Wikipedia. Rossami 17:18, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
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Hi,
I'm new here, 2nd day. I'm trying to figure out all the syntax notation for creating messages and articles.
I did not find an article on Natural hygiene so I created one and it created a big controversy. It's kind of fun.
I'm not sure how this kind of democratic process can produce objective truth. It seems like the weight of popular opinion is what dictates the neutrality of an article, and the truth can get squashed, if the majority wants it. Paul B Mann
- Well, this is an evolving project--we don't claim to be perfect. You might want to look at Wikipedia:Replies to common objections, which (I believe) addresses this issue. Best, Meelar 19:23, 26 May 2004 (UTC)
