Oliver Keyes wrote:
Agreed. A good example; on the English Wikipedia,
I'm a massive law nerd
with 40-something legal GAs and FAs to my name. I'd never even have studied
the subject if it wasn't for a group of Wikipedians, some of whom have later
helped me with or collaborated on articles. The importance of social
interaction cannot be understated, and it's why I have no truck with some of
the more severe "OMG WIKIPEDIA IS NOT MYSPACE" people. People come here to
build a collaborative encyclopaedia, yes, not to socially interact - but the
key word there is "collaborative". Social contact is inevitable and
incredibly helpful to us as a community; hells, it's what *makes us* a
community and not just a hundred thousand people who independently agree
that Wikipedia is nifty.
One of the more annoying of the anti-social species is the
kind that
becomes annoyed when talk page comments wander a little off topic, and
claim that this is contrary to the talk page's single purpose of
improving what's in article space. The improvement to the article from
these off topic comments may be somewhat oblique, but it can improve
one's understanding of the topic and of the person commenting.
Ray