On 10 October 2011 20:25, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Follow up to my own post of new thoughts... The idea of follow-on effects from improvements in project atmosphere is one that can be extended. We could, for instance, view the controversial content issue as a symptom of a community imbalance that could be improved indirectly and with less resistance than the "direct approach" image filter.
I have no basis for this other than a gut feeling, but it seems like subject matter (page content like images etc.) is less a barrier to entry than the contributing environment. Perhaps first focusing on environmental improvements would alter the community in such a way that controversial content issues could be resolved organically.
Nathan
Yes -- I think you're 100% correct, Nathan. You are exactly right: that is precisely what I am hoping and expecting.
The consensus model, and all the basic decision-making structures of Wikipedia, work fine --- they only produce poor-quality results when there isn't sufficient diversity in the discussions. That's why we sometimes see articles of interest to women being wrongly deleted as non-notable, and so forth.
I believe that at this point in our history, all minority Wikipedia editors likely tend to either i) happen to have interests and a personal style that is very similar to the majority culture here, and/or ii) have some extra motivation to participate that other members of their minority group lack -- e.g., a feminist desire to ensure women's history is well covered. The participation of the first group is great, but doesn't do anything to stretch the existing culture, whereas the participation of the second group will -- it is different from the norm, and so it will require the culture to expand, making it easier for the next generation.
That's why I'm so glad we have this list. That second group is going to have a tough slog for a while, and I am glad we've got people here who want to support them :-)
Thanks, Sue
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Sue Gardner Executive Director Wikimedia Foundation
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