[Foundation-l] "antisocial production"

[Marc Riddell]

>> '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....
>> 
on 6/27/09 6:07 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at fairpoint.net wrote:

> 
> 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.
> 
C'mon, Fred; it is "policy" to be "disagreeable"? And as for "closed to new
ideas"; that may be appropriate to the body of the encyclopedia itself, but
it applies very much in the various Mailing Lists & Talk Pages. Take a good
look.

Marc Riddell