Conservapedia talk:Commandments

Encyclopedic Content

We should add a new commandment that states that only things that qualify as encyclopedic content will be allowed. one of our criticisims of Wikipedia is "Wikipedia claims about 1.5 million articles, but what it does not say is that a large number of those articles have zero educational value. For example, Wikipedia has 995 separate articles about "Moby" and "song". Many hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles -- perhaps over half its website -- are about music, Hollywood, and other topics and gossip beneath a regular encyclopedia." We should be backing this up with a commandment. --TimSvendsen 22:31, 24 January 2007 (EST)

• Tim, I don't know if that's all that necessary right now. As you say on the South Park page... we have only deleted one because of its content. Remember, we don't want to have a ton of rules. If this ever becomes a major problem we can add it. PhilipB 08:59, 25 January 2007 (EST)
• Perhaps we should simply make a guideline about encyclopedic content. It could read something like this: "When creating new pages, we request that you attempt to limit your contributions to encyclopedic content." If we add that, we will need to define Encyclopedic Content. I think one of our main problems is that this is rather difficult to define. This whole issue is not very important at the moment, so we can probably just continue what we have been doing so far for the time being. I think we will need a rule on this at some point in the future, however. We should discuss this further so we will be have a plan to use when that time comes. ~ SharonS 13:11, 25 January 2007 (EST)

We need to add a commandment to prevent a problem from happening in the future. Is there ever a reason to allow an article that is not encyclopedic content? If not, then why not have a commandment. --TimSvendsen 22:48, 25 January 2007 (EST)

If we add an encyclopedic content commandment, it will keep people from posting non-encyclopedic content to begin with. Can anyone give an example of non-encyclopedic content that we would want to keep. --TimSvendsen 10:37, 31 January 2007 (EST)

We criticize Wikipedia for havin lots of useless articles that a "real encyclopedia" would not include. If we do not make a rule about such things here, then when we start getting alot of users, we will start having the same problem here. --TimSvendsen 15:37, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Tim, I changed my mind. I think it would be smart to make a command about this. PhilipB 15:44, 7 February 2007 (EST)

What is meant by what a real encyclopedia would have? For example, there has been some discussion about whether an article about South Park is acceptable. One could similarly ask about whether the Daily Show would be a legitimate topic for an article(certainly the fact that it was one of the most popular political comedy show on TV and is often accused of having a liberal bias is relevant) or what about comic strips such as Doonsebury and Opus? Similarly, going backwards in time, what about the Twilight Zone which in its original incarnation often included social commentary? Or Gilbert and Sullivan who in there day were considered to be pop culture. Heck, we can continue this all the way back to the Oresteia. If a line is going to be drawn, it should be clear where it is. JoshuaZ 15:46, 7 February 2007 (EST)

I think that we should have a Commandment limiting entries to "encyclopedic content," and then define encyclopedic content in a seperate page. on the subject of TV shows, we should establish concrete criteria that disqualifies most TV shows but might allow some that have had a particular impact. (I am not sure on South Park it does not seem to me to be very imortant, but I do not know much about it.) --TimSvendsen 17:09, 7 February 2007 (EST)

To be honest, its hard for me to see how we couldn't have an article on it given how political the show is and how many people watch it. Also, I think your response about defining it on another page is a bit of a non-answer. Part of my concern above was how to define encyclopedic content and whether there is a good defintion. How possible it is to come to an agreement about how to define encyclopedic content is relevant to whether or not we should have the policy.JoshuaZ 17:14, 7 February 2007 (EST)

I personally know virtually nothing about South Park so I do not really know if we should have it. --TimSvendsen 17:28, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Possible Definitions

Make suggestions for defining encyclopedic content here.

The word "encyclopedia" comes from the root "-pedia," learning. "Encyclo-" means... well, here's what the American Heritage dictionary says:

The word encyclopedia, which to us usually means a large set of books, descends from a phrase that involved coming to grips with the contents of such books. The Greek phrase is enkuklios paideia, made up of enkuklios, “cyclical, periodic, ordinary,” and paideia, “education,” and meaning “general education.” Copyists of Latin manuscripts took this phrase to be a single Greek word, enkuklopaedia, with the same meaning, and this spurious Greek word became the New Latin word encyclopaedia, coming into English with the sense “general course of instruction,” first recorded in 1531. In New Latin the word was chosen as the title of a reference work covering all knowledge.[1]

"Knowledge" has several dictionary meanings, but since the -pedia root means "education," I think the meaning of "knowledge" that applies here is "Learning; erudition: teachers of great knowledge."[2]

So, my definition of "encyclopedic content" would be "content that is clearly related to a school curriculum." In the case of the World Book, I think that's a high school curriculum; the Britannica, a college curriculum.Dpbsmith 19:25, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Here is a general idea for a definition of encyclopedic content: Content that is useful, informative, important, major news, no advertising, no movie or TV show reviews, Etc. --TimSvendsen 17:28, 7 February 2007 (EST)

Unofficial Poll

Encyclopedic Content Commandment.

For

1.--TimSvendsen 17:12, 7 February 2007 (EST)

2.

Against

1. Cross that bridge when you come to it. Dpbsmith 19:25, 7 February 2007 (EST)

2.

Archives

BC/AD vs BCE/CE
American Spellings
Cite Sources