On 7/27/06, Stan Shebs shebs@apple.com wrote:
Jesse W wrote:
I just replaced the content of my user page with the following. I thought I would mention this on the list, also, as the resulting discussion might be useful.
Hmm, didn't you just a couple days ago dismiss my observations in the same vein with a "go make your own fork"?
To some extent, Hillman is overreacting; out of curiosity I spot-checked some of his articles, and other people's edits I saw since he stopped working on them a year ago were to fix typos, update template usage, and the like, the text itself being carefully preserved. It seems that even the vandals are intimidated by his contributions. :-)
Even so, many of his observations are spot on, and we always need to be thinking about whether our social structure is actually serving the overall goal, or just keeping us busy.
I think he's become an important and effective critic, but his criticisms have the overgeneralization flaw.
One of the overgeneralizations is failure to separate Wikipedia article evolution from Wikipedia's evolution and status as a whole, including the organizational and social aspects. There is nothing contradictory in having a social group organized in any particular manner, whose fundamental common goal is to write neutral, encyclopedic, fact-based and referenced encyclopedia articles. The social group organization being chatty won't necessarily change typical article tone or writing standards.
If there is a linkage there, then it needs to be documented and argued for, rather than just asserted.