[Foundation-l] "antisocial production"

[Fred Bauder]

> '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-wikipedians-grumpy-and-closedminded.html>,
> 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