'Forget altruism. Misanthropy and egotism are the
fuel of online social
production. That's the conclusion suggested by a new study of the
character
traits of the contributors to Wikipedia. A team of Israeli research
psychologists gave personality tests to 69 Wikipedians and 70
non-Wikipedians. They discovered that, as New Scientist puts
it<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16349-psychologist-finds-wikipe…ml>,
Wikipedians are generally "grumpy," "disagreeable," and "closed
to new
ideas."'
http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2009/06/the_sour_wikipe.php
I wonder how the mailing list will react....
Always knew this, Wikipedia is generally an outlet for folks who have low
interpersonal social skills, or at least insufficient outlets for self
expression. As to "Disagreeable and closed to new ideas", that is policy,
Wikipedia is a compendium of established knowledge, not a place for new
ideas, which we call original research.
Fred Bauder