[WikiEN-l] Civility poll results

[Charles Matthews]

Marc Riddell wrote:
>  Two words in
> your message state what is the main, insidious problem with the Project's
> culture: "It varies." To be fully productive, to reach its greatest
> potential and to achieve its stated goals a workplace's culture cannot vary.
>   
That seems to be twaddle. I work, largely, on mathematics, poetry and 
history. There is no obvious homogeneity in the people I meet; there are 
no obvious shared assumptions. The English Wikipedia draws on a 
particularly diverse population (many speaking English as a second 
language). It's not "insidious" that wikis don't select who works on 
them or how they work. It's part of the idea - a highly successful idea 
in our case - that the barriers to entry should be low. You'd get a more 
predictable culture if you said Ph.D.s and native speakers of English 
only. And no teenagers, ever. I had a talk page message four days ago 
starting "That is just silly" and ending "Be serious". Lack of shared 
assumptions, in this case about a navigational template, is something I 
feel I ought to be able to rise above.
> To work, to create, at their full potential, a person must be able to focus
> on that: the work. They cannot be constantly looking over their shoulder, or
> live with the anxiety that an unstable, unpredictable workplace can produce.
>
> And the old party-liners - those who have "led" by insinuation and not
> consensus - can blow all the smoke they want at the messengers, but the
> message is still there loud an clear.
>   
I think you'll find a more informed, and, yes, more nuanced discussion 
going on in parts of this thread not dominated by generalities.

Charles