Marc Riddell wrote:
Zoney wrote:
>On 08/05/07, Matthew Brown <morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>We're not professional. Except for a tiny bunch of people who work
>>for the Foundation, we're all volunteers and our time is not
>>especially coordinated. Wikipedia is what it is, and part of that is
>>that we've grown faster than our organization has.
>>
>>
>The project should be managed professionally if it is indeed a serious
>project.
>
>
on 5/9/07 12:22 AM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge(a)telus.net wrote:
Absolutely not!!!
Why not, Ray?
The project has had over the last six years proven success despite being
run almost exclusively by amateurs. It's contents have stood up well in
comparisons with what competitive products there are, and where errors
and inaccuracies have been noted it has had a remarkable ability for
self-correction. The ludicrously low amount of money spent to maintain
the site certainly ensures that it is the most cost-effective site in
the world's top ten. While there have been noteworthy gaffes and
outrageous entries, these nevertheless represent a miniscule proportion
of articles. A certain amount of this must be expected; it cannot be
eliminated completely.
The power of the project is not in the product, but in the process. In
what has become McLuhan's cliché, "The medium is the message." The
medium is hotter than any that McLuhan might ever have imagined. The
fact that a broad public can and does now participate in building such a
site as this, or any other of the big websites, is evidence of a
tremendous paradigm shift in the world of communications. As Kuhn
forsaw, a paradigm shift does damage to the old ways, especially to
those who would cling to those old ways. People now participate because
they can; they work on shaping their future because they can. The
effect on the record and movie industries may be viewed by some as sad,
but for others it represents new freedom and new self-esteem.
Otherwise it's all just a bit of a larf and
it'll eventually come
crashing down.
Had we been so professional from the beginning we would never have risen
high enough to be able to come crashing down.
Perhaps we need to begin with a definition of "professional", but, in
any
case, what is your reasoning here?
In it's crudest manifestation a professional is one who is paid to do a
job. It is also a person who has "paid his dues" to the established
order, and now has the credentials that permit him to repeat past
mistakes. Had we been run by professionals from the beginning we might
have had the same success as Nupedia. That project was as professional
as we are not. It captivated no imaginations. Before we can crash down
we need to have overcome the fear of flying that made us airborne in the
first place.
Ec