On 6/28/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/28/07, michael west michawest@gmail.com wrote:
The place to discuss problems is within the project.
That is a rather simplistic view of things. Our problems get blogged, web boardded, show up on Usenet, and from time to time on CNN, the New York Times, etc.
Creating new sites that back-stab (ok I agree there is a way to debate on that site) is just boring. And despite all its good intentions the talk pages are meant to provoke. Leave the project and slag it off, it doesn't help anybody, it just shows the conceit some ppl have for their own opinion. Will they have sysops, i seriously doubt it.
I don't know who are admins there and who aren't, but they have some people going around cleaning up stuff which violates the standards they've set. And the standards are reasonable, on first inspection.
A functional feedback system works best with both internal and external critics. We've had a fairly bad string of luck with external critics either being transient or just really bad. Rootology could end up doing us a world of good if this works out, by setting up an external forum for non-rabid, ongoing thoughtful challenging criticism of the WP project.
Who knows how it will turn out, but you never know.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
Sensible comment, as usual, George. Yes, most things need some external criticism in order to reach higher levels of success. Still, the sites are incredibly boring, poorly done, repetitive, so I don't see either of the two I looked at as being the source of useful criticism for improving Wikipedia. In a way it is better to have something like them rather than a reactionary response to every negative comment in the mainstream press, but these sites are not the ones that will improve Wikipedia.
Your comment in general is on target, the examples discussed in this exchange don't fit the billl, though.
KP