Goals
Although Wikipedia is designed to be a consensus systems, many discussions about article content end up as polemic disputes, with editors locked in endless arguments over minor (even trivial) points. There are different reasons for this: sometimes editors are trying to maintain a certain representation of a topic (e.g., to protect or defame its reputation), sometimes they are reacting emotionally to what they perceive as insulting or stupid edits, sometimes they are defending the status quo or enforcing rules with mindless determination, sometimes... Usually they have good reasons for these polemics, invariably they have good intentions, and as a rule perspectives on all sides would be valuable contributions to Wikipedia if the editors involved could stop fighting about it and get back to editing the article.
What these discussions need is a good dose of common sense. That's the goal of this project.
This project starts from the idea that the Wikipedia as an activity should be closest to journalism, not an exercise in science or philosophy. With that in mind, it advocates the ideal that the only thing that matters on wikipedia is producing fair, thoughtful, balanced articles about the topic in question:
- Truth doesn't matter, except to the extent that a thoughtful article wants to be truthful
- Appearances don't matter, except to the extent that a fair article doesn't want to give misleading appearances
- Opinions don't matter, except to the extent that a balanced article wants to present all pertinent opinions
- Rules are never a substitute for discussion, and have no value except to the extent that they are demonstrably an extension of common sense.
- Everyone has something useful they want to contribute, and should be treated that way
