3 years? that is total bullshit. I have been contributing only since August of 06, and I have been deeply involved in all sorts of heated and influential deletion discussions surrounding policy interpretation. I have had my views respected and heard bc of the clarity and (I hope) veracity of my interpretation. Wikipedia is a meritocracy. No matter how long you've been around, if you have a strong argument you will be heard. It is simply that most new editors ignore policy and only argue around semantics. This is naturally ignored for the most part. But once any new editor who figures out what they should be using as evidence, they can be heard.
On 6/24/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
To Steve and Gabe the Count reference was unfair as an analogy. Secondly, communism is about discussing policy, but how many lowly editors ever get heard above the BOOMING voices of long established administrators and beuracrats on policy/guidline talk pages, who often snuff out comments with a nonsense or I formulated this ;-)
Marc, people do get a lot out of Wikipedia thats why many of us are still contributing. But editing goes far beyond the encyclopedia anyone can edit. It only become the encyclopedia anyone can edit after you have studied policy for 3 years. disgruntled first, second, third time edits will revert to vandalism unless we handle new and experienced editors much better than we do now.
Mike33
On 25/06/07, Gabe Johnson gjzilla@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/24/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
Other places have drawn analogogies about Wikipedia as being akin to a cult. I think it does have aspects of that. The same has been said
about
Trotskyist groups. I think that a better analogy would be that
Wikipedia
looks like a Trotskyist group (though obviously not in any political
sense).
- Wikipedians value themselves on the amount "counts" they are at.
- Wikipedians spend more time discussing policy than actually
writing
articles.
Wikipedians don't respond well to critism from outsiders.
Wikipedians have an Uber Mentor (Jimbo Wales).
Trotskyists value themselves on the amounts of "newspapers" they
have sold.
- Trotskyists spend more time discussing policy that actually doing
groundwork.
- Trotskyists would rather die than have a kind word for somebody
who
has left the movement.
- Trotskyists have an Uber Mentor (Leon Trotsky, James P. Cannon,
Gerry Healey, Posada, Tony Cliff, Ted Grant etc. etc).
Perhaps, many groups could be included not just Trotskyists (I have
been
a
Trotskyist for 18 years, and been part of various schisms within even
small
groups), but use it as an example of how ordinary editors do get
bogged
down
in changing perception of policy and guidelines, which many, many
editors
only get to hear about when they actually contribute.
Perhaps a closed Wikipedia is the way forward, we all know that
Wikipedia is
not the encyclopedia everyone can edit.
There was much criticism of Esperanza and it ended up just being a
clubroom
and block vote. A New Esperanza type project would be helpful
(wikilove
is
too crass though) but as a way of helping new editors or editors who
tend to
write new articles not get so fed up with process that they leave.
Would welcome any comments.
Mike33
It's true! Wikipedia *is* communism!
(I'm thinking we should have a pageg about that. [[WP:COMMUNISM]].)
Also, someone mentioned editcount. See [[WP:COUNT]]. ~~~~
-- Absolute Power C^7rr8p£5 ab£$^u7£%y
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