[WikiEN-l] Re: Fwd: Google Alert - Wikipedia

[Andrew Gray]

On 26/11/05, Timwi <timwi at gmx.net> wrote:

> I'm not much wikiolder than you are, but one observation I think I've
> made is a relatively sudden decline in eventualist attitude in 2005.

Now that you mention it, I've certainly noticed this. I just don't
know if I realised it!

(...)

> I've become less active as a Wikipedian and I think it's because I liked
> the eventualist atmosphere more. It gave us more room for mistakes, and
> it allowed us to worry less and be more relaxed. I think eventualists
> tend to assume good faith more, precisely because they are less worried
> and more relaxed. The more someone worries about Wikipedia's quality or
> reputation, the more likely they are to intervene vocally when they
> perceive some change as detrimental, giving a somewhat higher chance of
> generating an unpleasant environment.

This is a very good point. The West-African-Country article naming
dispute recently is a good example - long, acrimonious, pissed off a
good number of people... and all for something that reflected entirely
on the _current state of the article_, and (as someone pointed out, I
think), would have been decided by a single layout editor one morning
when preparing a print version, and with no-one having particular
problems over this fact.

We've stopped putting off a lot of things, but the honest problem is
that there's often no need to fix them now, and we're just annoying
each other trying to. Let "final" users tweak them as they see fit, to
search-and-replace petrol with gasoline, Gdansk with Danzig... or
quietly delete all school articles, or Pokemon articles, or stubs, or
whatever.

The more I think about eventualism the more I like it. We're in this
for the long haul, not to produce an encyclopedia for a 2006 deadline.

Wikipedia can do exceptional things in a short deadline - a favourite
example, not counting the major "current events", is the
fortnight-long crunch to create articles on all 650ish UK
constituencies in time for election night this year. (It worked,
mainly thanks to two or three dedicated users, of whom I was not one).
The missing-articles lists can clear up at a pretty good clip, when
they get attention. But we shouldn't mistake our ability to do this
for the need to do this - we can go slow on a lot of things, take our
time and a bit of care.

--
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk