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One Man's Quest to ensure that his way is the only way. This illustrates a serious problem with Wikipedia. It does not allow diversity of thought or opinion -

One Man's Quest to ensure that his way is the only way. This illustrates a serious problem with Wikipedia. It does not allow diversity of thought or opinion - here, it doesn't even allow natural evolution of language over time - if a "wikignome" has decided something is canonical for Wikipedia, then it is. No argument. No matter how many people believe this is now acceptable usage, one person - typically one white man - has the right to sanction every single one of them. We are supposed to tell wikignomes that their work is valued (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiGnome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiGnome). But I don't think this work should be valued.

cheriot 12y ago
I get the feeling there's more behind your comment than the article. If "comprised of" is something that copy editors agree on and the rest of us just don't know about then it seems pretty reasonable. Language evolving is a good thing, but keeping non-fiction writing on the conservative side makes sense.
abandonliberty 12y ago
Encyclopedias should be information, not opinion. Reality isn't democratic. Mind you an article such as the one on global warming or the global warming controversy does address the diversity of thought or opinion. However, there is no good place to store controversy around the meta-structure of wikipedia: the grammar and phrases we use. Perhaps what we are missing is an article discussing the use of "comprised of". There is an argument, both illustrated in the article and some comments here - and both those who argue for pedantry and laisez-faire have valid points.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Village Pump or Manual of Style would be the normal places for meta discussion of mass changes of "comprised of". If the editing is problematic it goes to ANI and then amybe RFC and eventually Arbcom. Edit: and some Wikipedians really do like talking about this stuff. Look at hyphen, minus, en-dash, and em-dash for an example of discussions spread out over several article talk pages, several meta spaces, with some Arbcom action. There are easily 500,000 words just on different dashes.
- learnstats2 12y ago
  > Encyclopedias should be information, not opinion. Yes, OK. Grammar trolling the whole of wikipedia does not add information - it just serves one person's opinion.

cheriot 12y ago

I get the feeling there's more behind your comment than the article. If "comprised of" is something that copy editors agree on and the rest of us just don't know about then it seems pretty reasonable. Language evolving is a good thing, but keeping non-fiction writing on the conservative side makes sense.

abandonliberty 12y ago

Encyclopedias should be information, not opinion. Reality isn't democratic. Mind you an article such as the one on global warming or the global warming controversy does address the diversity of thought or opinion. However, there is no good place to store controversy around the meta-structure of wikipedia: the grammar and phrases we use. Perhaps what we are missing is an article discussing the use of "comprised of". There is an argument, both illustrated in the article and some comments here - and both those who argue for pedantry and laisez-faire have valid points.

DanBC 12y ago
Village Pump or Manual of Style would be the normal places for meta discussion of mass changes of "comprised of". If the editing is problematic it goes to ANI and then amybe RFC and eventually Arbcom. Edit: and some Wikipedians really do like talking about this stuff. Look at hyphen, minus, en-dash, and em-dash for an example of discussions spread out over several article talk pages, several meta spaces, with some Arbcom action. There are easily 500,000 words just on different dashes.
learnstats2 12y ago
> Encyclopedias should be information, not opinion. Yes, OK. Grammar trolling the whole of wikipedia does not add information - it just serves one person's opinion.