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Narrative
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Fast Eddie: You know, I am just sitting here hating on Wikipedia, because of the way I have seen it crush people under the weight of its cliques and bureaucracy. Entries there are driven toward this Jack-Webb-just-the-facts-ma'am sort of ... pablum.
No spice. No opinions. A whole lot of "No!". I hope we never get like that.
Seth: I just dislike their format, i can't work with all their coding fast enough. This place is simple; coding is a few {{, [[, and '', that's all. Wikipedia is too complicated for a casual editor, everything takes too long then it gets reverted by whoever thinks they are king of that particular page.
Viewer: I think you're both grossly overgeneralizing. Look, I know Wikipedia has more than a few tyrants, and the rules can be a bit rigid. But at the same time it's an all-purpose encyclopedia, and it really does seem to be shaping up to be a general knowledge base, and I'm glad that its there as a learning and reference tool.
Seth: You misunderstand, i love reading wikipedia, i just hate editing it. It takes to long and its too easy to kick of an edit war. And in my experience (That is almost every page i have edited, not including the ones i started) There is usually someone with an idea of what they want a page to say and try to trample what others put in if they don't like it There is this one dude from the Bleach articles who reviews almost every edit made to all the articles and then reverts anything that he doesn't agree with. This isn't bad it starts off as an attempt to revert vandalism then they start interjecting their opinions then suddenly anyone else's are contraband and his opinions are the ruling ones. Make enough edits and get admin powers and it becomes that much easier. Just my experience of things though, and i do tend to stick to very fan-orientated material which is going to have some hard core fans defending it.
Fast Eddie: Seth, mi amigo, if you are going to be on my side, I wish you would do the grammar thing. ;-) That aside, I am down with your statements. Cliques, sometimes even a clique of one, can force an article there into a particular viewpoint. Don't get me wrong. There is buttload of information available in Wikipedia on "hard" topics — topics that are all about the facts. That is all good.
Here's the thing, though. I have a copy of Encyclopedia Britannica that I can see from here, on many shelves, and copies of books like The Selfish Gene and the collected works of CJ Cherryh on others. The Encyclopedia Britannica bindings look pretty good. They could probably fetch "fine" or maybe "new" at auction. The rest? I should probably just keep those. :-)
Morgan Wick: There's supposed to be rules and procedures
 against tyrants.
Sockatume: The two lessons I have learned about Wikipedia editing are:
1) We are they.
2) You're meant to spent more time discussing edits than making them.
The second one is what most people don't seem to realise. Most of your time will be spent complaining to the Powers That Be (see (1)) that someone is editing beyond the scope of common sense, and compromising with people you can't stand, and finding third-party statements to back up sentence fragments which are (to a great mind as yourself) completely self-evidently true. It's not a synthetic exercise, it's a review of the existing work, and unless you like research, it's insufferably tedious. It's not a place to say something, it's a place to be a mouthpiece for others greater than yourself.
The most important lesson on creating articles is, of course:
1) Would someone who doesn't already know this, actually read this?
And its corrolary (corollorary? collolollolloohforgetit):
1)i) You are here to write for Joe Public, not yourself, or even your friends and enemies.
Basically, if you're, say, summarising all the events, character development, important thematic changes, etc. in each episode of a TV show, you've got to wonder who is going to read it. It's a good ready reference for existing fans, sure, but for everyone else it's just a fantastically elaborate (dare I say Bondesque?) way of spoiling a show for someone.
Lale: Well, with some shows, knowing what you're in for and understanding what otherwise might be confusing can be a good thing (writing with Evangelion specifically in mind).
I, for one, also find writing more fun than reading, and I'm sure I'm not alone. Which is more fun? Reading the wiki entries here or editing them? And if writers use/enjoy wikis more than readers...
Big T: That's the thing. The Other Wiki (I daren't say the name) is an free encyclopedia first, and a wiki ("that anyone can edit") second. In other words, the readers are more important than the writers.
That said, I feel a huge sense of accomplishment whenever I can get anything onto that site. A challenge is nice, every once in a while.
Mr Etaoin Shrdlu: I actually think Wikipedia has done some things that we can learn from (okay, get out your tar and feathers now). For one thing, they do have humorous articles, they just corral them into the appropriate sections of their wiki - we do much the same with our "Subjective" and "Just For Fun" tags. What's more, their notability policy helps to cut down on a bunch of unnecessary, hyper-obscure pages being Entry Pimped by one guy who loves them. There is a major problem with Fannage though, which is why I chose to move to a wiki which is explicitly about fiction.
Fast Eddie: Chopped on this puppy like Jason with a chainsaw. Morgan Wick: The "on one hand" sentence didn't make sense without an "on the other" one, so I restored it. Fast Eddie: Good point. However, I think the fix was was in the direction of less-info, rather than more. Taking a further chop. Sci Vo: So, I was about to explain my latest edit when I had to evacuate the building because of a fire in one of the first floor apartments. (I'm fine.) Anyway, I started out trimming and rearranging to punch it up a little (as usual) and ended up getting a bit...expansive. Please chop anything that grates. Da Nuke: We have our Wikipedia entry, guys! Now go out there, and contribute for great justice. Caphi: Up until recently, the following sentence is valid English: "The TV Tropes entry on Wikipedia links to the TV Tropes entry on Wikipedia, but the TV Tropes entry on Wikipedia doesn't link to the TV Tropes entry on Wikipedia." I have taken it on myself to fix this bug. Kerrah: I think this article should be removed for lacking notability. Seanette: Not to mention being inadequately sourced with apparent original research. Gizensha: I think my main issue with The Other Wiki is the hypocracy that some of the policies are enforced. Myriads of trivia for popular fictional television shows (and Dungeons And Dragons)? Apparently notable. Summaries of just the major elements of each episode of a Game Show, such as Deal Or No Deal? Original Research despite it being no more 'original', nor any less encyclopaedic, than detailed plot summaries of every single Star Trek episode ever. Kinitawowi: I gave up on Wikipedia the moment I read a claim (by an admin) in an Af D discussion that Wikipedia exists for it's editors, not it's readers. Fallingwater: I love reading wikipedia. I can lose myself in the links and learn stuff for hours at an end. However, I almost never edit it. I correct obvious grammar mistakes every now and again, but I leave the big edits to people with more patience than me. Also, I'm already enough of a cynic without having to deal with the massive stupidity of the Page Kings, and the tyrants, and the abusers, et cetera, so I just don't go into it.
Tv Tropes is different. I think the most glaring difference, aside from the contents of the articles, is that it's friendly. Mostly. The active part of the 'pedia sounds to me like a mix of 4chan, youtube's comments and an encyclopedia (that's bad), while TVT feels like a gathering of people with a sense of humor who don't necessarily have to eat each other's hearts out whenever an edit gets blasted to oblivion. (my two cents, in case anyone cares.)
SpiriTsunami: There was once a motion to delete our page on their site. It failed. I picked a good time to check out their page, though, because a second motion started just a few hours ago. Naturally, the reason for the motion is that they can't seem to come up with any "reliable sources" for our site. One person, who did not identify themselves as a troper, pointed out the irony of deleting the page for this reason during the discussion that followed the first motion; another, who was a troper, also pointed out the whole "notability" thing, and made at least one wiki editor consider loosening up the standards of notability. I've already given them my opinion on the new motion—I used Cyberchao X as my user name when I decided to become a Wiki editor as well. If it ever comes down to a war, though, I'm on the TV Tropes side.
ccdesan: I love Wikipedia as a source of information, and I have been able to create several articles which have survived. However, I do find their rules and regulations ponderous, and definitely off-putting for the average editor. In fact, average editors seem to have no place in the organization - I've been "ripped a new one" by a number of people whose sole purpose of existence seems to be putting other people down, not unlike Dogbert the publisher, who revels in being able to dismiss people's life's work with a snide remark and a wave of his paw. My best revenge is to stick to it, and see what difference I can make on the few articles where I have valid knowledge to contribute, but I don't spend a lot of time trying to edit, for the above-stated reasons. TV Tropes, on the other hand, seems to be much more welcoming of the common man. |
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