User talk:Duemellon
Hello Duemellon and welcome to Wikipedia! Hope you like it here, and stick around.
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My Wiki-mission
The big things I'm concerned about are:
1) Overwriting historical perspectives instead of creating up to date addendums.
- If we lose our perspective of events in the past as they were perceived at the time we lose an important window into the mindset of society, or that particular author's depection of social reaction. Any updates that refute the on-the-spot reaction should be an addition. Even if there is a retraction to what was considered factual.
- An important fact about the opinion of the word's shape is that it was, at one point, considered flat. To go through and eliminate that information would remove the context of the importance of the revelation as well as an important piece of accepted general knowledge.
2) Avoiding perspectives of perception to the event and information while ensuring that socially-centric statements are properly noted as such.
- Archiving is about facts, and a generally held opinion can be considered a fact (in that the opinion was generally held). Such opinions are important in the perspective of the readers to come. It is simultaneously necessary to ensure such opinions are duly noted to be opinions, and that they are properly attributed to the group of people that held it.
- It would be a great disservice to archive the events of the 9/11 attacks without including the reaction to them. Just imagine if a thousand years from now a researcher with no previous information was to read the event as a series of facts but all forms of emotional reaction were left out? It's the same situation I have faced when reading information about the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. or the Chernobyl disaster. It is very important to share an emotional reaction clearly separate from the facts and attributed to the society or group who reacted such a way.
3) Redundant, unnecessarily supurfluous, and information considered important but in perspective is not.
- As the current contributors we have a responsibility to include information and create articles we consider relevent. The caveat is to avoid expounding on people or places who's relevence to the course of history is dubious. To spend a few pages on World War II is expected, but to have a separate articles for every individual who participated in the war on any level is not. If a tribute is desired and is relevent to the subject, I suggest a large consolidated page for the various subjects. This also means we must reign in our current enthusiasm for current events and consider their relevence to the future audience. An entry about the fictional Star Wars Universe deserves archiving, but the eleventh episode of Vampire Hunter D would be too much focus on a contemporary event.
Well, those are the things I'm on the lookout for.
I have requested that cites be found for some of the claims in the article. I wanted to notify you, since you created much of the material, in case the article wasn't on your watch list. Jim Apple 06:04, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
Tax reform
Thought I'd let you know that I put United States Tax Reform up for a merge with Tax Reform. Since you seemed to think it should be merged as well. Morphh 04:18, 3 August 2006 (UTC)