Re: [Talk-GB] Wikis are not tablets of stone as suggested by the suburbs debate: a proposal

[SK53]

Hi Brian,

The real problem with the wiki is that pages tend to be prescriptive rather
than descriptive.

This is the difference between Fowler & Fowler (or for Americans Strunk and
White) and a good dictionary. A quick scan of Language Log
 will show all the problems of
prescriptive usage forms (not least, that the prescriber are often just
plain wrong ).

Given the keenness for the prescriptivism of English usage guides, trying
to change who key & value pages are written on the OSM wiki is probably a
Sisyphean task. One simple start would be to remove the voting element from
tag proposals, which is rarely truly consensual (given the quorum is 15
from say 500,000); and remove use of the term 'deprecated' which is
prescriptive.

Taginfo, of course, provides the baseline for a descriptive approach. For
this reason I largely use it when trying to choose a tag for something I
rarely tag.

Regards,

Jerry

On 24 November 2014 at 14:23, Brian Prangle  wrote:

> Hi everyone
>
> Why not have  a large advisory at the head of every wiki page which links
> to the following content?
>
> The content of a wiki page is:
>
> 1. as close to authoritative as possible but NOT AUTHORITATIVE
>
> 2. for guidance only: it is NOT MANDATORY
>
> 3. reflects only  the collective opinion of the editors of the page
>
> 4.subject to local knowledge and ground surveys which ALWAYS TAKE PRIORITY
> OVER WIKI CONTENT
>
> 5. to be ignored only after careful thought and suitable tagging with a
> note= xxx tag to explain
>
> 6.not to be used as a basis for automated edits: See policy on automated
> edits which requires discussion with the community affected and the
> reaching of a consensus.
>
>
> Rgds
>
>
> Brian
>
>
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[Talk-GB] Wikis are not tablets of stone as suggested by the suburbs debate: a proposal

[Brian Prangle]

Hi everyone

Why not have  a large advisory at the head of every wiki page which links
to the following content?

The content of a wiki page is:

1. as close to authoritative as possible but NOT AUTHORITATIVE

2. for guidance only: it is NOT MANDATORY

3. reflects only  the collective opinion of the editors of the page

4.subject to local knowledge and ground surveys which ALWAYS TAKE PRIORITY
OVER WIKI CONTENT

5. to be ignored only after careful thought and suitable tagging with a
note= xxx tag to explain

6.not to be used as a basis for automated edits: See policy on automated
edits which requires discussion with the community affected and the
reaching of a consensus.


Rgds


Brian
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