Wikipedia talk:The Most Important Thing Possible

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Background[edit]

Since JesseW went and created this page, I might as well explain where the text in it came from.

There was a thread on the Administrators' noticeboard about two editors who were involved in a fairly massive, far-flung edit war over such weighty issues as... date formats. Nandesuka wryly observed that this was "of course, the most important thing possible that these editors could be working on". GTBacchus noted the way at least one of the editors had been breaking promises and running roughshod over policy, observing "I guess it's the fact that whether or not dates are linked is the most important thing in the world that makes it necessary to flout the opinions of other editors." I happened by, liked the phrasing that Nandesuka and GTBacchus had both used, wondered if we had a page along the lines of Meta:The Wrong Version about it, and coughed out a first draft (originally here). —Steve Summit (talk) 19:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Earlier comments[edit]

When it was originally posted on WP:AN (see above), this essay drew a couple of comments which it's worth reproducing here. (Note that I'm copying them with signatures intact, but that Syrthiss, Talrias, and JesseW the juggling janitor made their comments at the Administrator's Noticeboard earlier in March, not here now.) —Steve Summit (talk) 19:08, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

corollary[edit]

The corollary to this then should be: If you feel something is wrong, you are likely not the only person to see that it is wrong. If you cannot fix it, you can take comfort that you are not the single point of failure. Either some other editor will eventually correct it, or some other editor may eventually convince you that it was not wrong. --Syrthiss 20:52, 10 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

serious or satire?[edit]

I'm trying to work out whether this is serious or satire. Or, more precisely, I'm wondering how many people would think what's written above is actually quite sensible advice. Talrias (t | e | c) 02:36, 11 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Satire. I'm afraid of how many people would treat this as good advice. Sort of like m:MPOV. In any case, I've made a page for it Wikipedia:The Most Important Thing Possible... Someone should come up with a nice WP:WP for it. Enjoy. JesseW, the juggling janitor 10:44, 19 March 2006 (UTC)

Reducing confusion[edit]

I realise that the point of this page is to encourage people not to be stressed by policy, however, in the interests of having a basic level of civilisation/order I added a suggestion to people about deciding whether they would cause more harm/confusion than good by going blindly into their action. Not sure if it is something that will be questioned however as this is a humorous essay anyway. Ansell 11:12, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

Well, actually I just reverted this addition because this is a humorous page :) --Duplode (talk) 00:49, 29 May 2010 (UTC)[reply]