Stop Tidying Wiki

Wiki, unlike WikiPedia, is an intentionally messy place. People get together here haphazardly, work out which other PeopleProjectsAndPatterns they want to work with, glom things together and then make something of them. Or they don't, and the ideas hang around here exerting WikiAji, perhaps becoming useful again later on. Perhaps not. But that's not for you to say because you don't have some godlike vision of what will and what won't become useful content in the future.

Therefore,

If you don't know what a page is good for, or what it means, or who on earth could be interested in it, Leave It Be. You're not qualified to decide to delete it, edit it, refactor it, or do anything else with it. It's not for you. Go do something you know how to do and stop hacking up other people's stuff.

But,

Just because you say this doesn't make it true. If you want a forum where people won't edit your posts - start your own website..

What I say here generally becomes true. -- PeterMerel, joking, natch. But seriously, I'm not suggesting people not edit each others' edits. I'm suggesting that being a GoodWikiCitizen means treating each others' edits gently, and allow the WikiNow sufficient RealTime to do its stuff.

Well what I say to others here generally becomes LaynesLaw. -- LayneThomas (you can debate whether that's generally true or not ;)), but I do agree with being polite - when tempered with appropriate wisdom (how's that for vague). Seriously though, I generally delete pages like YourMotherPeesOnYou?, GreatViagraDeal?, HereIsMeRantingAboutSomeRandomTopicNotEvenVaguelyRelatedToSoftware?, or ThisPageShouldReallyBeOnWikipedia? types pages. I virtually never delete pages about software (unless I created them and therefore have rights)

Yes, the FuBar pages should be deleted; you know what they mean, what they're good for, and who would be interested in them. Nothing and no one. The specific delete that prompted this rant was CategoryCategoryCategory. This does not fit your criteria but it is sadly common that a certain person whose identity is unimportant deletes such stuff. Presumably because he or she doesn't know what it means, what it's good for, or who could possibly be interested in it.

I agree mostly, Peter, but I have to draw the line somewhere. The wiki does have a fundamental purpose, and that's to discuss PeopleProjectsAndPatterns.

Actually, this wiki's fundamental purpose, stated years ago by itself on DramaticIdentity, is to create other wikis. The whole PeopleProjectsAndPatterns thing is a palimpsest. I forget who tacked it on after the fact. Ward someone. Whoever probably wasn't thinking too hard when he did it.
''Peter's claim looks very like much rewriting history. Ward expressed his desire to keep it on topic in quite a few occasions.
- This is an important point - let's not gloss it. Please list these occasions.
Ward intervenes rarely and when he does it, he does it deliberately.
- Likewise please provide examples of Ward intervening on topicality.
Now Peter lets us know that Ward did not really meant what his postings and his actions would otherwise indicate.
- Surely you aren't this obtuse. Peter has merely noted that on a time-honored and much-visited page the WikiWikiWeb declares its purpose as the propagation of wiki webs. Ward wrote a whole book with this intent - the WikiWay. Seems like Ward's words and actions are not so catholic as you assume.

I'm tired of you trolling, Peter. You want to pretend you don't know what I'm talking about go ahead, I don't give a damn. It's not the first time when you try ShiftingTheBurdenOfProof, so I'll respond to you when you simply cut all the crap.

Sometimes you see pages that are obviously bad and out-of-bounds. SuggestiveHypnosis? was a great example of one of these pages. Sure it had content, and it might even be interesting, but there are a lot of wikis out there, and even a few of our SisterSites, that would be far better venues for such a discussion. I'm all for live-and-let-live, but we do need to keep a certain amount of topicality to wiki or it will dissolve into a bubbling soup, making it difficult for new permanent content to emerge.

Until we have a functioning InterWiki, this is kind of specious. Moving a page to another wiki pretty much guarantees that it'll never be read by the community here. This is why, for example, I never made an effort to move the CategoryWhimsy pages to GreenCheese en masse - because who the heck reads anything there?
- So what if no one here reads it? If they want to read it, they'll do so. If they aren't looking for such content, then that's better. This is analogous to saying that the New York Times refusing to print stories from Weekly World News denies NYT's users access to such content. Nearly all NYT Readers don't want such content. The few that do can buy another paper. The real draw for most of its userbase is the patterns and anti-patterns repository, and the software engineering discussion clustering immediately around it. There are a lot of users who never edit, who never go to RecentChanges, and are largely ignored, but they're in the majority so far as I can tell. I know more passive C2 readers than active ones, by a fair margin. Like I said, we can have some leeway here. The SpaceElevator is geeky and systems-related enough that I think it's okay, but SuggestiveHypnosis? (or the dreaded AboutAtheism?) are really inappropriate. C2 is not a meta-wiki. Meatball is a meta-wiki, and we clearly tie together shared pages allready.
- TolerateOffTopic. The alternative, as we have seen yet again today, simply generates noise and leads to the DarkSideOfTheWiki.

Well, but again, this discussion is deja-vu all over again. Peter has a very different view and philosophy about what Wiki is, or has been, or should be. I can understand his desire for things happening the way he sees it, and if we all subscribed to it he would be basically right. But not all folks around here see things the same way as Peter, so therein lies the rub. What I do not understand, however, is why Peter, knowing that there are folks around who do not see these things in the same way, creates pages like this in the prescriptive tone about what to do or not to do, rather than approaching it more cautiously with a ThereforeBut in the end. -- CostinCozianu

Because that's the way all wiki content has ever been generated. It goes back and forth, pages spin off, pages get deleted, pages get reinterpreted, and the WikiNow continues. As for respecting community values, you, Costin, have taken far more stick on that than I ever did. As for my desiring things to happen, I just emit a signal, other people just emit signals, the signals mix around in peoples' noggins, it all goes round and round, wo-wo, and it comes out here. -- DeleteMe.

Anyway, did I not ThereforeBut right here on this page? -- DeleteMe.

Personally, I'd like to hear the signal of what Peter's philosophy is. . . ?? -- LayneThomas

Oh, don't get him started. -- EasternWuss

Well surely if he's that advanced, he'd have a page describing his philosophy. . . or he'd put it on this page he created. at least in theory. . . -- LayneThomas

They tried to warn you ... simply, WikiHasIdentityNotPurpose?.

Am I the only one who wonders why this page was(is) called StopTidyingWiki?

CompellingIrritant apparently.

Or ask questions on that page. If you don't get intelligent answers, drop hints. So long as the page stays on RecentChanges people will discuss until consensus is reached. If the author's can't explain why the page is brilliant, it probably isn't all that brilliant after all. Don't be too quick to delete, but don't leave crap lying around forever either. --BenAveling

This page does not need any category. But if it did, it would be CategoryWiki, so we'll just mention that here in passing. <cough>