On 15/10/2007, Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net> wrote:
on 10/15/07 12:39 PM, David Gerard at
dgerard(a)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(a)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.