Wikipedia's Achilles heel was inevitably going to be its size, and the unwieldiness of managing or guiding large group trends. If you think about any society in general, its continuity is dependent on the establishement of ritual behaviours. Wikipedia's core principles are for the most part exactly what should be, but Ive been concerned that we lack rituals for indoctrinating people into a sense of our community goals and nature.
Indoctrination? Yea--if people feel like a mere number,(relative to others I suppose), then only those with the a healthy and egotistical presumptuousness will tend to be assertive, and gain for their online persona. The purpose of encyclopediasm and community are not entirely in sync --community requires personality, which can be obstructive to the goal of being NPOV and detached.
So, (more smoke out of... (MSOOMA)) if conceptual continuity is based upon outdated modalities of community, then that may (conceptually) validate the worries that of the community growing thinner as it grows larger. Certainly its worrisome to think that good articles today can be turned into porridge by a slew of new, dissassociated editors, but that's perhaps where "Wikifaith" comes in, I suppose.
The general idea, back in the day, was that as problems grow, the community must restructure to answer them. Disputes gotten too big for JW and the mailing lists?--empower a committee to deal with this, and another to deal with that. The point is that these committees are more than just bantha fodder--they represent community structure, which is just as important as software structure, or NPO structure. If were not responsive in terms of community structure... <i>aw, look at me, I'm ramblin' again. Wal, uh hope you folks enjoyed yourselves. Catch ya further on down the trail.</i>
SV
--- JAY JG jayjg@hotmail.com wrote:
From: Chris Jenkinson chris@starglade.org
I must say that I think that everyone who does not
respond to a (good
faith) questioning comment asking them why should
have their
vote/opinion on the matter disregarded. If they are
not willing to say
why they believe what they do then they should not
be considered
contributing to the discussion. Wikipedia is
rightfully not a democracy
where you can vote for whatever reason you like.
Any position someone
takes must be able to be challenged.
Well, speaking personally, I've probably voted in support of 3 dozen RFAs, and only voted against 3 applications, each time listing my reasons. In each case I was challenged, sometimes in a most rude way, for more detail. When I provided it, giving links to examples of policy violations etc., I was attacked again. Those who did not give reasons for rejecting the applications were not subject to these violations of [[Wikipedia:Civility]] policy. It would be most tempting, in the future, to simply vote "No" and refuse to give a reason, in order to avoid this kind of unpleasant treatment.
Jay.
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