Quoting Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net:
On 15/10/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 10/15/07 12:39 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Yes. The community is important to the encyclopedia, but the encyclopedia is more important than the community writing it.
This seems to be your personal POV throughout, David. Would you consider the possibility of at least an equal balance between the two?
on 10/15/07 2:47 PM, David Gerard at dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure how that could really work, though. The point of gathering the community is to write the encyclopedia.
I realize that.
It may be useful to pretend otherwise at times
I don't know what you mean by this statement.
David, I spend time reading many of the Talk, Discussion and whatever other Pages I have access to as a non-admin; and my informed read is that there are a great many very unhappy people in there. The mood is angry, the climate is cold, and the culture in trouble. And statements like "the Project is more important than the Community" not only reinforces the Members' feeling of second-class status, but serves, also, to give permission to those who would behave abusively to others.
It's about attitudes, inclusion and respect. You are a very visible and vocal Member of the Wikipedia Community, and what you say carries more weight, with the more impressionable among us, than you may imagine within that Community.
Marc
I think you are misinterpreting his statement. The bottom line is that the Encyclopedia is the goal. The community is a means to that end. That doesn't change that members should be respectful to each others because we need the community to function.