Keep Pages Focused

Starting a page with a question makes it muddy. Start it with a position or all you get is ThreadMode. Removing the position statement from a page makes it impossible to agree on a distinction of the meaning of its title.

You can clarify the terms of a discussion by asking a question. In the real world, panel moderators do it all the time. And then if the page starts to lose focus -- and all pages do, given enough time, what with entropy working the way it does -- then you just refactor. A position statement makes perfect sense if an overall consensus has been reached, but forcing consensus prematurely isn't good either.

The tradition on C2 has been to begin a page with an unsigned position statement. Since it's not signed, no one gets hung up about refactoring it. ThreadMode, including questions, is traditionally separated from the position, and periodically a refactorer will try to use the discussion to improve the position statement. Of course sometimes, like on TerroristDefinition?, this starts to look like more trouble than it's worth ... but it's a lot better than just a page full of ThreadMode with no obvious focus. Really controversial pages, like TerroristDefinition?, can spawn so many related pages that this starts to look like more trouble than it's worth ... but persevere and the benefits are proved.

I'm aware that it's one of the standard ways is to use an unsigned position statement. I think that's often useful. But in my work refactoring pages here, I've found it's a lot easier to get moving if I reduce it to an essential question. It's easier to find the question -- i.e., "What do we mean when we use the word 'architecture'?" -- instead of finding the resolution -- i.e., "When we use the word 'architecture', we mean this."

Doing so allows me as a refactorer to focus the page, but without spending a lot of time upfront asking myself "I have 20 pages of thread mode from 100 contributors on this page, how do I summarize it?" Sometimes it's easier to know what people are disagreeing about, than to know what they're agreeing on.

I think of consensus as an ultimate goal, and without keeping that goal in mind Wiki loses a lot of its uniqueness. But consensus is genuinely difficult. And I've seen many pages where adding a summing-up position statement would be impossible.

So to sum up I agree that we should KeepPagesFocused. I just don't think the position statement is always the way to do that.

CategoryFocus