Wikipedia is the free, online, encyclopedia. Entries are made up by the users. It is only as good as the users are. Anyone is free to make and entry or change an entry. It has 3,000,000 entries. Wikipedia has a code of conduct:
Respect your fellow Wikipedians even when you may not agree with them. Be civil. Avoid conflicts of interest, personal attacks and sweeping generalizations. Find consensus, avoid edit wars, follow the three-revert rule, and remember that there are 2,960,266 articles on the English Wikipedia to work on and discuss. Act in good faith, never disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point, and assume good faith on the part of others. Be open and welcoming.
We need a code with something as wide-open as the internet. Like any code, some pay not attention to it and "do their own thing." Codes are a standard we try to hold ourselves to in order to make live available to all. Codes are not self-enforcing. They are voluntary. Someone will always feel he or she is above the code. The code does not apply to them.
Can you (repeatably) articulate the code to which you hold yourself? Does it have the power to convict (and change) you even if no one is looking? Do you have no code at all? Does the code change depending on the situation?
Listen to me, you who pursue righteousness
and who seek the LORD :
Look to the rock from which you were cut
and to the quarry from which you were hewn; Isaiah 51:1 (NIV)
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