One side effect of Wikipedia, which may turn out to be bigger than
the intended main effect is that tens of thousands of people have now
been trained in a certain style of online interaction. You can't work
on Wikipedia for very long without starting to internalize the
processes, rules, and values you've learned from the community.
Someday someone will perhaps address outgoing Wikipedians in a manner
similar to those of a well-known Front Range university:
"You are now certified to the world at large as Alumni of Wikipedia.
She is your kindly mother and you her cherished sons and daughters.
This exercise denotes, not your severance from her, but your union
with her. Emergence does not mean, as many wrongly think, the
breaking of ties and the beginning of life apart. Rather it marks
your initiation in the fullest sense into the fellowship of the
Wikipedians, as bearers of her torch, as centers of her influence, as
promoters of her spirit. Wikipedia is not the servers, not the
software, not the policy pages, not the editors of any one time--not
one of these or all of them. Wikipedia consists of all who come into
and go forth from her pages, who are touched by her influence and who
carry her spirit. Wherever you go, Wikipedia goes with you. Wherever
you are at work there is Wikipedia at work. What Wikipedia purposes
to be, what it must always strive to be, is represented by its logo,
which is a shining spherical jigsaw puzzle assembled from a score of
pieces. If you keep it not whole, how disintegrated it becomes! But
if you hold it together, who can measure its power? With hope and
faith, I welcome you into the fellowship. I bid you farewell only in
the sense that I pray you may fare well. You go forth, but not from
us. We remain but not severed from you. God go with you and be with
you and us."