Mav wrote
Do you? We are here to build an encyclopedia. The
community aspect is a means to an end, not an end in
itself (and I think that was the underlying message
that Danny was writing about).
I think so. Because the articles do not appear from no
where. They appear from a human capital that must be
mothered.
And please consider how
insulting it appears to put in quotes the word
"Wikipedian" when referring to another contributor;
in English this implies that you believe the other
person is not a real Wikipedian. That isn't nice and
I hope you will do the right thing and apologize to
Danny - who /is/ a damn good and very real
Wikipedian.
That was not what I meant, so I apologize. However I
think that in Wikipedia, everyone can be part of the
big picture. And being a good wikipedian is not only
granted by being a *good editor* and a *good vandal
chaser*. If you and Danny think so, I think we
severely disagree upon how a team is working in a
project such as Wikipedia.
**If this is the case, I suggest that we discuss about
it, because that is very important.**
I think building an encyclopedia is not done only by
just creating articles.
participating in the building is also :
* helping setting the rules and recommandations
* building the software
* helping to sooth people in edit war
* balancing powers
* playing devil advocate
* cleaning after others
* welcoming newbies
and so on.
Danny seems to consider the only thing important and
valuable is making articles. I don't think so.
Everyone input is valuable, and people that are little
participating directly in articles are just as
important. Some of the developpers basically do not
write anything. Are they not important to the project
?
If people like Martin, KQ, Brion, The Cunctator, and
others of course, were not around, I would not be
around myself. Because if Brion were not there, no one
would take care of international wikipedias, if Martin
was not there, no one would take care of balancing
things, if The Cunctator was not there, no one would
take care of pointing out to obvious things being
missed because of groupthink.
And I could cite half a dozen people just doing *very*
important things in the project, that I think are even
more important than editing, because that is were
their power and ability rely.
A team (what I think we are, not a random collection
of little penpals), must be made up from very
different people, with different abilities which
complete themselves.
A project just can't work without software,
governance, structure. And yes, Zoe was important too
in her role of chasing vandals. And yes, welcoming
newbies is important too. And yes, Ed role of
insisting on NPOV is very important too.
Not only "creating" articles.
The last point I think the worse in its underlying
meaning is to suggest martin should not be a sysop,
just because he is not writing much articles.
Remind me of what a sysop definition is please,
because I think we must also perhaps redefined what a
sysop must be.
Is it granted by the number of edits you make to an
article ?
Or is it granted by the fact people are confident you
will act in faith ?
Would anyone dare suggest Martin is not acting in good
faith ? Would anyone dare suggest Martin work was more
bad to the project than good, just because he tried to
balance power, endlessly check and improved all the
FAQ and meta articles, endlessly diffusing wikilove
over those in edit wars ?
I think that saying Martin is not a good wikipedian
and should be removed from sysophood just because he
is not creating many articles, is a VERY VERY VERY bad
direction the project is taking. I am sure you can see
that as well Mav.
I also hope very much that Danny will do the right
thing as well, and apologies to Martin who is also a
very good wikipedian.
This is a case of forking we have here if these things
are not agreed upon.
Anthere
--- daniwo59(a)aol.com wrote:
Hi!
I am a little annoyed by Martin's recent antics,
regarding the unblocking of
vandals, not to mention his defense of the most
obvious cases of extreme
vandalism (the Zog incident comes to mind). It is
very difficult to ban someone on
Wikipedia--in fact, the number of permanently banned
users I know of is just
six (HJ, Ark, Lir, Michael, DW, Zog, some of whom
had various incarnations).
The ability to block an IP (and not a user name) is
used to prevent kids from
adding grafitti to the site. In most cases, it is
effective, and those vandals
disappear once it becomes more challenging to edit.
It is not some instance of
eternal damnation. If the person apologizes and
begins to really contribute,
they are welcomed back. Even in the serious bans
above, people have been told
that if they reform their behaviors they can return
and continue to contribute.
Discuss it with Jimbo and they will be welcomed
back. Most don't because they
have no interest in coming back.
Wikipedia is a project with a stated
objective--creating an encyclopedia. Its
objective is not to create an ideal democratic
society a la Martin's
perception of one. Nor is it a dumping ground, where
anyone can put any crap they want
in the name of free speech. It is a place that works
best by consensus and
compromise--not by making abrupt decisions that this
must be the policy, come h
ell or high water. That is why I was opposed to
making a final decision on the
date format and spelling policies. Look how much
time that wasted from the
overriding goal, when a compromise of allowing
people to do what they want seemed
to be working fine for the most part. Unfortunately,
it was Martin pushing
that finalizing agenda again.
The end result of all this is that some of the
serious long term contributors
have left--Zoe, for one, was one of the most
prolific Wikipedians and a real
defender of the project against vandalism. While
Martin is certainly prolific
on the Recent Changes, a quick look at his past 500
changes show that his work
is over 90 percent focused on users' Talk pages, and
most of the rest on
contentious pages, where it is bound to flame the
fires of dispute.
What I would like to see are some solid
contributions--an article culled out
of a Talk page does not count---before wasting our
time with the Vandal
Liberation Front. Instead I wonder when he was made
a sysop whether it was to police
it over the rest of us or to further the goal of
creating an encyclopedia.
Danny
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