User:Jaz/enter

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.

User:Jaz

This is an open letter to the Memory Alpha community discussing failures that all of us, including myself have been involved in, and possible solutions for how to save Memory Alpha

[edit] Why Memory Alpha is Failing

Fear of incompleteness

Over the past few weeks, I have witnessed so many arguments that have ended with, well, we can't do X because we'll have to do Y. It is as if people are afraid of taking on new tasks that would make the wiki more complete in the long run. Most of our regulars here seem to have forgotten our mandate to create a collaborative project to create the most definitive, accurate, and accessible encyclopedia and reference for everything related to Star Trek. Not canon. Canon is not the factor that decided inclusion anywhere in the encyclopedia, its just a line in the sand we've drawn for in-universe material. Meta-Trek and background information should be limitless in scope, as should analysis.

Administrator elitism

Take a look at any major dispute on a talk page and what will you see? In the overwhelming majority of cases it is an administrator who makes the final say. Is this a problem, some might ask? Aren't Administrators supposed to maintain order on the site? Short answer, no. The function of an administrator is to carry out administrative tasks, such as deletions, et cetera, that are granted with sysop. It is not the role of an administrator to be the judge, jury, and executioner of content

Policing

This is a term I use for regular contributers who, rather that make their own edits, simply monitor the Recent Changes, looking for errors on pages, made both by regular and new contributers. While certainly there is a need to uphold standards here, policing often results in needless reverts when time could better be spent contributing new information.

Hostility towards new editors

Throughout Memory Alpha's history new contributers have been treated with hostility.

Administrator hypocrisies

Take a look at personal attacks on talk pages. The vast majority of them have been made by administrators against non-administrators.

Self-limiting

Memory Alpha's recent trends have been to slowly narrow our scope of expertise, thereby limiting or wealth of knowledge, extremely ironic for a wiki.

Obsession with policy.

GR would freak out if he saw this place. He would freak out. I remember a discussion page once where a regular contributer stated in response to why they stand by a failing policy (and I'm quoting)"I'm siding with THE LAW!". Jean-Luc Picard once said, "there is no justice so long as justice is absolute

Closed to new ideas

In total antithesis to all that is Trek, this place has become completely closed to new ideas, creativity in content, and thoughts on how to better the encyclopedia.

[edit] What can be done

Administration issue

It think it's time to radically retool our method of choosing administrators. To root out the elitism that seems to be constant trend, I recommended the following. It seems crazy, but I think the answer is more, not less administrators. Anyone who demonstrates that they are a regular contributer (for say, two months or so) and doesn't engage in seriously bad behavior (personal attacks or vandalism) should be granted Sysop rights. Can anyone really think of a situation where a frequent contributer has gone rogue and started vandalizing? I cannot. By opening up Sysop to more users, we create an environment where Sysop is de-mystified. I also call on all non-administrators to remember that they have just as much say in any discussion or argument as anyone else

Policing, Scope, and Creativity

I recommend a new informal policy for all users to follow. Policy isn't really the best word. It's more of an "I'd really rather you would...". I call it the Editors Prime Directive of Editing, and it is a policy of non-interference. Here's the idea:

1. The principle of addition. It's always better to add information than to fix someone else's perceived error.
2. The principle of growth. One should never totally remove anything that directly relates to Star Trek, and is covered by our mandate. Things can be moved, but in general, if someone adds something that a) contributes to the project or b) adds new insight that didn't exists before, it should not be taken off the project. Obviously vandalism doesn't under this principle. Neither does fanon. Non-canon info, however can always be moved to an appropriate page.
3. Principle of good faith. This one's actually already a policy, but I think we could all use a reminder here. Always assume good faith.

Thou's Holy Policy

Policy isn't scripture. Everything is open to change. Challenge everything. If a system is broken, fix it. If the rules no longer applied, the rules need to be changed.

New category method

I like the wikipedia method where anyone can create a category. If it needs to go up for deletion later, so be it. Some might ask, but wont this lead to incomplete categories? Yes it will. What can be done? Just put a pna-incomplete, and over time, we will all improve on it. Memory Alpha will never be perfect. It will never be complete. We should never be afraid of taking action because it will create more work, or because the idea is to large to be carried out in the short-term.

Involve academia

Literally thousands of academic, peer-reviewed articles and books have been written on Star Trek. While analysis can often lead to the senseless speculation we like to avoid, academic analysis is a fantastic resource which we have thus far ignored, and there is a plethora of information and discussion on many issue within Trek. By ignoring the major thematic discussions of Trek, we are ignoring our own mandate of aiming towards an encyclopedia of everything related to the universe Gene created.

I'm sure that many who read this will disagree. I hope that each of you who reads this will at least find some kernel of truth within it, and move towards change for the better. I myself have be complicate and participatory in many of the behaviors I to which I objected. Since many will disagree with me, I would like to open up User:Jaz/Future as a forum for discussing my open letter. When the discussion is complete, I will merge it into my talk page.

Happy editing. --- Jaz 19:04, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

User:Jaz