On 21.11.2015 12:21, Jane Darnell wrote:

+1
I think many Wikipedians are control freaks who like to think their
articles are the endpoint in any internet search on their article
subjects. We really need to suppress the idea that the data they have
curated so painstakingly over the years is less valuable because it is
not on Wikidata or disagrees with data on Wikidata in some way. We can
and should let these people continue to thrive on Wikipedia without
pressuring them to look at their data on Wikidata, which might confuse
and overwhelm them. They figured out Wikipedia at some point and
presumably some of them have figured out Commons. In future they may
figure out Wikidata, but that will be on their own terms and in their
own individual way.

Yes, one can also understand the point of view of many seasoned Wikipedians. Because of the popularity of the platform, large parts of their daily work consist in defending "their" content against all kinds of absurd ideas and changes for the worse. Rather than writing new, better content, their main work is in rejecting content that is worse. They therefore are spending a lot of time on talk pages, having debates with people whom most of us would simply ignore on the Internet, but which they cannot ignore if they want to protect what has been achieved already. Doing this is hard work, since Wikipedia rejects the notion of personal standing or seniority as a basis for "trusting" someone to be right -- every puny battle of opinions has to be fought out on the talk page. The only thing to allude to is some abstract notion of "quality" -- and a complex system of policies and processes.

This tough work hardens people and gives them a negative bias towards change, especially towards process changes that might lead to reduced control. They worry (not unreasonably!) that Wikidata does not have this community of gate keepers that can fend off the irrational and the misguided. They also worry that they themselves may not have enough time to take on this task, watching yet another site in addition to what they already do in their Wikipedias.

Conversely, people on Wikidata are (not unreasonably!) frustrated when being met with the same distrust as the average Internet freak that Wikipedians are fighting off on a daily basis, rather than being accepted as members of the Wikimedia community who are working towards the same goal.

Considering all this, it is amazing what has been achieved already :-)

Markus

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