--- David Gerard <fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
This is a question that has occurred to me in the context of
arbitration,
and how to avoid it.
There's a common personality type for trouble on Wikipedia: brittle
in
interactions with others, can't tolerate ambiguity, so gets into
rules-lawyering. Sees "common sense" and "judgement" mostly as
excuses to
exercise bias, not as recognition that all rules are fluid in the
pursuit
of our goal.
I am not thinking of any individual, but of a general type I've
noticed. I
think something about Wikipedia will tend to attract them. I would
*guess*
it's something that attracts people from further up the autistic
spectrum
than the general populace, but that's just speculation.
The point is that they're good and hard-working contributors, but
can get
difficult to work with. And putting them on a processing line that
leads to
arbitration strikes me as not being a good thing. Is there a better
way?
I welcome your thoughts and speculation.
Working in software development, I can tell you that the people on
wikipedia very much resemble those who write code for a living.
Leading programmers is often referred to as "herding cats".
See
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html for an
interesting essay on group dynamics.
I would say that reminding people often of the goals of wikipedia is
rather important.
Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan(a)yahoo.com
chris.mahan(a)gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/
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