Read this a few days ago, and thought it was really good. Wanted to
say that, even if there isn't much more to add. I particularly liked
the last bit:
"We're an educational institution in two senses: we write educational
material for the world in general, and we educate each other."
Carcharoth
On Sun, Oct 17, 2010 at 6:22 AM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:
More than maintaining the articles,and more than
maintaining the
group, the focus should be on maintain the continual and increasing
development of new editors and new articles--not just as content
creators, but as gnomes, and techies, and admins. The excitement of
working here has not just been on our wide influence, but of
_developing_ something that will have wide influence, and of
developing it in a way which will be self- perpetuating. Many people
and many groups have written encyclopedia, but very few have done as
we have, developed a new way of creating them, and other material
also.
This is not a finite project., and will remain a matter not just of
replacement , but of further grown. Based on other human institutions,
we are not likely to even attain a finished form or a finite bod of
knowledge. I think that should be seen here also as what our goal
should be. I don't want as much to continue what I do in Wikipedia ,
as to have others continue it , while I learn new things to do, and
find people who will do things that I've not even dreamed of being
capable of. If i have a choice between rescuing articles, or
rescuing even one editor, It's the editor who matters--in the hope
that they will write many articles and in their turn encourage yet
more editors.
We're an educational institution in two senses: we write educational
material forv the world in general, and we educate each other.
On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:
On 16/10/2010 15:23, Marc Riddell wrote:
On
15/10/2010 22:36, MuZemike wrote:
<snip>
> That comes to my question regarding whether or not we are here to build
> an online community or an online encyclopedia. Should we focus outwards
> toward the reading/viewing audience, or should we focus inwards
towards the editors?
on 10/16/10 9:01 AM, Charles Matthews at
charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com
wrote:
It was settled early on that we are writing an
encyclopedia. Before I
started editing. What has happened since then? Well, we have had some
divas on the site who have thought that we should focus on things that
are basically all about them rather than the encyclopedia. And this has
been a strategy partially successful in its own terms. But fundamentally
I don't think such people have won the argument, however much harder
they may have made it to see the "community" as primarily a working
environment. That's what it remains, a highly interactive place in which
to do voluntary work on an encyclopedia.
No, Charles, an environment alone does not build an encyclopedia; or, for
that matter, any other group project. There are two elements involved: the
effort required to work on the substance and goals of the project, and an
equal effort to build and maintain the group, yes, the "community" of
persons collaborating to achieve the goals of the project.
Think what you like. The actual membership of the "group" has changed
much more than the pages on which matters are discussed, as places to
exchange views and information. You also are misreading what I said.
Where do I imply "alone"?
Charles
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David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG
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