From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org [mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of Garion1000
On 1/5/06, Geoff Burling llywrch@agora.rdrop.com wrote:
. People of the same POV have always found each other on
Wikipedia, &
Userboxes are hardly a powerful new tool to accomplish this.
But userboxes makes it a lot easier to do so. Look it two AFD's. The one for some catholic encyclopedians and the gay rights in iraq article.
So what are you saying? It should be *hard* for Wikipedians to find others with similar interests?
This whole argument seems to resemble others I've heard. It's like one put up by firearm enthusiasts when attacked with the argument that firearms should be banned because many are used to commit crimes. They retaliate by saying that cars should be banned because so many are used to commit crimes. People actually die in traffic accidents, they say. Cars are killers, they say.
Userboxes aren't Wikipedia-killers. Maybe they are being abused. Maybe. But if so, isn't the *real* problem the abusers, not the tools they use?
A few days ago, I raised the notion of Google or Microsoft creating their own online user-edited encyclopaedia if we tried to get them to pay for Wikipedia's expenses. Two or three people said that sure, they could do this, but they wouldn't get the Wikipedia community.
The community aspect of Wikipedia is vitally important. In fact it's one of the marvels of the Internet, to see such a grand project being constructed as a co-operative effort. To my mind, anything that increases community bonds without detracting from the main objective is something that should be encouraged. If there is a problem with userboxes, then it should be discussed and managed, rather than adopt the simplistic "ban everything" approach.
Peter (Skyring)