User:Ensiform/rants

Hello.

Below are my rants. You may consider this a public forum and reply to them if you so desire.

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• I have observed time and again that Wikipedians keep a "brag sheet" of articles they wrote or edited. Doesn't this indicate that Wikipedia is fighting a battle against a core drive in human nature itself; viz., to claim credit for one's own creations and activities? (This is a rhetorical question. I dunno the answer.) Ensiform

I'll answer anyway. Yes, there's some desire for credit--but it also seems to make it easier to keep track of pages that are of primary interest to me. Elf 04:17, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

But isn't it nice that on people on Wikipedia do it off in the corner? I think it is nice that people take pride in their work. Kd4ttc 01:46, 2 Mar 2004 (UTC)

An important point, and one I've struggled with a bit. I've concluded that A) if someone wanted to know about me and what I've done, it would be helpful to have the list, and B) the ability to go to my user page and hit "Related Changes" makes it easy for me to track articles I've contributed to (and am therefore more interested in) while freeing up my watchlist to be used for other purposes. But you are right that we should all try to avoid feeling possessive of "our" articles, and I hope that I do that in general. You've given me something to ponder, though. Jwrosenzweig 23:47, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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• I hate vanity pages. Yes, Wiki is not paper --- but that doesn't mean we should have six billion pages for every man, woman, and child on earth, each of whom is, let's face it, unique and special in his or her own way, but not deserving of a Wiki page. I myself get more than 50 hits on Google, have appeared on radio and television several times, have had my writing and illustrations published in several papers, and... and I don't deserve a Wiki page. If you're writing your own, neither do you, okay? Ensiform 23:36, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

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• Wiki has too many lists!! I understand finite lists, like, say this one, or to a point, even this one, but really... List of books? List of songs?? Such lists, if anywhere near thorough, become so cumbersome as to be useless as a reference tool. Just narrow down the field a little, you know? How about List of songs that mention meat or something? Ensiform 00:36, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Archive/Votes for deletion/Lists. - Fennec 00:38, 2 Apr 2004 (UTC)

• Also see User:Wetman's perspicacious remarks on lists. Ensiform 23:41, 8 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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• I have decided that when two different things with the same name have entries, I believe there should be one disambiguation page with that name pointing to the various things, rather than have one thing be the default and have only the other things be saddled with (clarification) tags. For example. Graham Greene (the writer) is undeniably and vastly more famous than his namesake, the American Indian actor, yet Graham Greene points to a disambig page. I think that's reasonable, because (1) even if only 10% of people who type in the name are looking for the actor, let's accomodate them as much as the others, and (2) part of the pleasures of leafing (or clicking) through an ecyclopedia is finding new and interesting things. For the same reasons, I think Iron Man should be a disambiguation page as well. Not everyone is a comic book geek, you know (I am, but not everyone is). Why should the comic book be the default article, and not the song, novel, triathalon or whatever? Ensiform 22:28, 4 Apr 2004 (UTC)