I dont see how this comment about Checkers, from the Department of Fun page, helps to build an encyclopedia:
"Play checkers at Wikipedia and reduce your stress. No editing, patrolling, or anything else is allowed during this time!"
This is not at all what the Department of Fun was intended to be. It was a tool to help build an encyclopedia. It was never intended as a tool to keep people from editing, as this statement clearly asserts.
Danny
On 7/4/05, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
I dont see how this comment about Checkers, from the Department of Fun page, helps to build an encyclopedia:
"Play checkers at Wikipedia and reduce your stress. No editing, patrolling, or anything else is allowed during this time!"
This is not at all what the Department of Fun was intended to be. It was a tool to help build an encyclopedia. It was never intended as a tool to keep people from editing, as this statement clearly asserts.
Clearly it has *increased* the stress level of some editors.
Someone was talking about EQ, which I've since forgotten whether it stands for Emotion or Empathy. Something more San Francisco than Cambridge, anyway.
I'm wondering whether the heat and hatred I see on Wikipedia is the result of a bunch of anal-retentive nerds being pushed together. In fact, some of the discussion and attitudes displayed here are exactly what you'd expect if you got a large group of propeller-heads together and forced them to co-operate and converse without the use of emoticons.
Slashdot is a similar large project, explicitly aimed at the nerds of the world. Does anyone know how they relieve stress?
I donno, but your spot on about the nerds. The wikipedia makes me want to nerd-bashing, like that rival frat in "revenge of the nerds"
Jack
On 7/3/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/4/05, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
I dont see how this comment about Checkers, from the Department of Fun page, helps to build an encyclopedia:
"Play checkers at Wikipedia and reduce your stress. No editing, patrolling, or anything else is allowed during this time!"
This is not at all what the Department of Fun was intended to be. It was a tool to help build an encyclopedia. It was never intended as a tool to keep people from editing, as this statement clearly asserts.
Clearly it has *increased* the stress level of some editors.
Someone was talking about EQ, which I've since forgotten whether it stands for Emotion or Empathy. Something more San Francisco than Cambridge, anyway.
I'm wondering whether the heat and hatred I see on Wikipedia is the result of a bunch of anal-retentive nerds being pushed together. In fact, some of the discussion and attitudes displayed here are exactly what you'd expect if you got a large group of propeller-heads together and forced them to co-operate and converse without the use of emoticons.
Slashdot is a similar large project, explicitly aimed at the nerds of the world. Does anyone know how they relieve stress?
-- Peter in Canberra _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 7/3/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Slashdot is a similar large project, explicitly aimed at the nerds of the world. Does anyone know how they relieve stress?
Trolling.
-- Fredrik
is "trolling" identical to saying things you dislike? I think it is obvious some people intentionally annoy others on the wiki, as well as the mailing list, but this certainly didn't seem like an example of that to me. This "troll" word is an ugly slur, an intellectually dishonest powerword. Call a spade a spade.
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 7/3/05, Fredrik Johansson fredrik.johansson@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/3/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Slashdot is a similar large project, explicitly aimed at the nerds of the world. Does anyone know how they relieve stress?
Trolling.
-- Fredrik _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 04/07/05, Jack Lynch jack.i.lynch@gmail.com wrote:
is "trolling" identical to saying things you dislike? I think it is obvious some people intentionally annoy others on the wiki, as well as the mailing list, but this certainly didn't seem like an example of that to me. This "troll" word is an ugly slur, an intellectually dishonest powerword. Call a spade a spade.
I think you've misunderstood something here: "Trolling" is the answer to "what do Slashdotters do to relieve stress?" In that context, it's not necessarily even an insult, from the trolls point of view. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_subculture and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slashdot_trolling_phenomena
On 7/3/05, Fredrik Johansson fredrik.johansson@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/3/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
Slashdot is a similar large project, explicitly aimed at the nerds of the world. Does anyone know how they relieve stress?
Trolling.
Skyring wrote:
Someone was talking about EQ, which I've since forgotten whether it stands for Emotion or Empathy.
Empathisation. Its complement is systematisation.
I've looked around on Wikipedia and it seems that the concept isn't as well-known or widespread as I thought it was: Wikipedia doesn't cover it.
I used EQ as an abbreviation for "empathisation quotient", and SQ as an abbreviation for "systematisation quotient". These terms are used by researchers in developmental psychology, particularly autism-related research. People usually tend to have an average value of both, but people who have a high value for one tend to have a low one for the other. People with noticeably low EQs and high SQs are said to have [[Asperger's syndrome]]. People with *extremely* low EQs (and typically correspondingly higher SQs) are autists. Women tend to have a higher average EQ than men, making them more suitable for tasks involving contact with other people, while men tend to have a higher average SQ, making them more suitable for technical subjects (IT, mathematics and natural sciences, that sort of thing). Of course, there are also high-SQ women and high-EQ men. They aren't even particularly rare (although autism is pretty rare in females).
People with high SQs tend to favour logical, consistent and predictable sytems, such as computers and the Internet. Hence why their incidence on Wikipedia is higher than in the general population, and hence why Wikipedians are on average less empathisational than the general population.
Concepts whose understanding requires a broad understanding of human emotional response, such as the concept of "personal attacks", "civility" and stuff like that, which isn't measurable in numbers or cannot be objectively defined, is difficult for these people. Purely logical thinking, on the other hand, is difficult for people on the other side of the spectrum -- most [[logical fallacy|logical fallacies]], for example, are an emptional response as opposed to a systematic conclusion, especially things like [[appeal to authority]] (if a highly-regarded expert favours something, it feels more plausible) and [[appeal to popularity]] (if everyone thinks it's right, it feels more plausible).
Incidentally, it also tends to be the systematisers who challenge pointless social conventions and question their validity. It's probably thanks to them that, for example, agnosticism is no longer a crime punishable by death, although the people at the time found the idea of tolerating it quite abhorrent (an emotional response). In general, systematisers seem to have less prejudice and other societally-imposed preconceptions, which is why I personally think they deserve much more attention to have their opinions heard than they currently get, even (or perhaps especially) when they are unable to shape it into a socially-accepted form that is palatable to the empathisers.
Timwi
On 7/10/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Skyring wrote:
Someone was talking about EQ, which I've since forgotten whether it stands for Emotion or Empathy.
Empathisation. Its complement is systematisation.
I've looked around on Wikipedia and it seems that the concept isn't as well-known or widespread as I thought it was: Wikipedia doesn't cover it.
Thanks for that. Very well put.
I've been thinking of that autistic chap from Rain Man recently (mainly when grappling with one of those fiendish [[Sudoku]] puzzles). He'd be a great editor if left to his own devices, but as soon as someone corrected him, uh-oh!
I don't think any of us are at either extreme of the bell-curve, but I have a feeling that in the case of WP, the mean might be skewed.
very
Jack (Sam Spade)
On 7/9/05, Skyring skyring@gmail.com wrote:
On 7/10/05, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
Skyring wrote:
Someone was talking about EQ, which I've since forgotten whether it stands for Emotion or Empathy.
Empathisation. Its complement is systematisation.
I've looked around on Wikipedia and it seems that the concept isn't as well-known or widespread as I thought it was: Wikipedia doesn't cover it.
Thanks for that. Very well put.
I've been thinking of that autistic chap from Rain Man recently (mainly when grappling with one of those fiendish [[Sudoku]] puzzles). He'd be a great editor if left to his own devices, but as soon as someone corrected him, uh-oh!
I don't think any of us are at either extreme of the bell-curve, but I have a feeling that in the case of WP, the mean might be skewed.
-- Pete, standard deviant _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 7/3/05, daniwo59@aol.com daniwo59@aol.com wrote:
I dont see how this comment about Checkers, from the Department of Fun page, helps to build an encyclopedia:
"Play checkers at Wikipedia and reduce your stress. No editing, patrolling, or anything else is allowed during this time!"
We could all do with a little less stress. On the projects as well as off.
Tim: Presuming unified logins or better RC filters, hiding the effects from the default RC would be easy.
SJ