User:RandomP/Proposed Rules

I think Wikipedia would be much better if those rules were to be followed, but I think most of them contradict established Wikipedia practice (well, d'oh, I wouldn't have to propose them otherwise). Not really meant to be binding at any point, of course.

• In articles about geography-based entities (countries, counties, cities, towns, transnational organisations) always list the population and geographic position first, in order to give the reader a first gauge of the importance of the entity, and, thus, its article.
  • (exceptions: the Holy See is about the sovereign, not the territory it has sovereignty over, and with certain essentially unpopulated areas, the situation is similar.)
• Generally list nationality and ethnicity after profession in articles about persons, unless they're both undisputed and really important: Thomas Aquinas was a philosopher who happened to live in what is now Italy. Describing him as an "Italian philosopher" (the current article does) is misleading in many ways (Italy didn't exist, he didn't write in anything like the present Italian language, he probably would have been utterly confused by the idea of an Italian nationality, ...)
  • However, with authors, particularly poets, the language they wrote in might be important.
  • Most importantly, avoid going into a long discussion about nationality before even telling us why the person we're talking about is notable.
• I still think that the first words of an article should be written in order to get as many people as possible to stop reading the article: assume that the reader came here looking up a term without any idea whatsoever about its meaning:
  • if writing about a fictional term, say so as soon as possible, and specify the fictional universe it applies in.
  • when writing about mathematics, say so outright. Many people just don't care, and we're only going to annoy them.
  • when writing about popular entertainment, I (and many others) just don't care. Make them go away by saying as soon possible that we're in the context of popular music, or reality shows, or someone making their living designing impractical trousers, or whatever this decade's fad is.
  • when writing about historical figures or facts, make that very clear. That's why I think that age, but not nationality, should be listed as soon as possible in biographical articles. (And yes, there might be people who decide they don't care about biographical articles purely based on nationality, but frankly, they're stupid).
  • when writing about small or otherwise unimportant entities, that should be made clear. In particular, when writing about geographical entities not of immediate relevance to a population of at least 10 million or so, give an approximate population number.
  • when writing an article that only makes sense in the framework of a certain philosophy or religion, or presupposes an "open attitude" to parascientific phenomena, include the relevant warning words.
  • when writing about a medical phenomenon, say so. When writing about a rare medical phenomenon, make sure that "rare disease" is what the reader sees as soon as possible (if possible, qualify "rare" with an incidence frequency).