fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
On 15/10/2007, fredbaud@waterwiki.info fredbaud@waterwiki.info wrote:
The encyclopedia is the work of the community, its creation. Thus the encyclopedia is dependent on the viability and integrity of the community.
Yes, but if it comes down to one or the other ... then what?
It cannot do so. Maintenance of the community is necessary for the maintenance of the encyclopedia. To fail to maintain and support the the community is to fail to provide the prerequisites necessary for continuance of the encyclopedia in its current dynamic form.
Not only can it do so, but I believe it does all the time in small ways. Communities are made out of people, and we eternally have people leaving because they don't like the way it's going. And that's ok.
But what if comes down to the community or the project on a large scale? As you know, Fred, communities are prone to capture by special interest groups. If Wikipedia had gone differently, it could have ended up running out of control as, say, a tabloid journalism site or nothing more than Geocities-style fan tribute pages.
In that case, the right thing would not have been to say, "Oh, well, that's what the community wants. Let's call it 'the gossip rag anybody can edit'." In extreme circumstances, the right thing would have been for the Foundation to destroy the community and start fresh. This is know as "hot tubbing" a community:
http://www.plocktau.com/writing/hottub.html
This nuclear option is closely related to the right to fork, which is a fundamental part of open-source efforts:
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?RightToFork
Although these sorts of things are dreadful and painful and to be vigorously avoided, it's important to remember that if it really comes down to it, things will be ok. Unix has had more than 30 years of drama and forking, and it's doing just fine:
http://www.levenez.com/unix/history.html
So in the end, that's why we have "absolute and non-negotiable" things like NPOV. The community is really important, and we should treasure and nurture it. But ultimately, if we have to choose, we pick the encyclopedia.
William