[Foundation-l] Re: Social issues for the newer projects

These are some thoughts prompted by the incident on Wikinews recently discussed on this list. They are general in nature, and decidedly *not* directed at any particular individual. I venture to say that anyone who thinks they know what individuals I have in mind is *highly* likely to be mistaken. However, I think the general principles are important to consider, especially for those who are trying to shepherd the development of Wikimedia's younger projects (i.e., everything but Wikipedia). Wikipedia is clearly our most successful project. It attracts the bulk of our contributors and is easily the best at producing quality content. In the process, it has become a solid, well-functioning community. This is because it consists of people who can collaborate well, and for those who cannot, the system allows people of good will to exert various pressures until the problem cases either change their ways or leave. These factors are self-reinforcing and thus allow for continued improvement (this is not predestined, and we should avoid complacency, but that is a topic for another day). None of the other projects, in my opinion, is yet particularly successful at any of these things - attracting contributors, creating quality content, or developing a sustainable community. They are still in earlier stages, so I'm not saying they can't, or even that they should be further along than they are. And they do have fine content occasionally, but need the contributor base and the community atmosphere in order to bring the content to a higher level overall. The contributor base is a huge problem, because none of the other projects brings in enough new people on its own; they all grow by virtue of Wikipedia's coattails. But people strongly attracted to Wikipedia are more likely to stay there, so the other projects end up with those who, for whatever reason, did not fit in. Why do some people not fit in? In some cases it's due to legitimate disagreements over how broadly Wikipedia should extend, so we often talk about other projects as ways to accommodate content not included in an encyclopedia. This is fine, and people who are less comfortable in the Wikipedia community for this reason are not a problem. Let them work on the project they like best, and they can team up with those people who never would have even tried Wikipedia, but contribute now because they really love the idea of Wiktionary or Wikinews or whichever project. The problem is with people who don't quite fit in with our community ideals. By this I don't just mean NPOV, but the need for collaboration and consensus-building. This kind of person starts out on Wikipedia, and would likely have stayed there if they had been successful in that community. They don't leave on account of a block, nor are they even obviously violating any policy. But when they grow frustrated with the give and take of the process (not having their way, essentially), they migrate to one of the other projects to try again. These people, if there are too many in a project, will drag the community down instead of up, and the content will ultimately suffer as well. I am concerned at having observed several cases (again, no names) follow this pattern. I'm not talking about people trying to push a political agenda in one place and then the next - those are easier to recognize and deal with. Rather, I mean people whose Wikipedia careers show that they have difficulty recognizing community sentiment and understanding when a consensus is developing. The problem may manifest itself in a different way on the next project, but its cause remains the same. One also hopes that people can learn and do better with a fresh start in a new project. Some of these users will improve and avoid their Wikipedia errors, but some will not. I think it is important for those trying to guide the newer projects to watch for problems of this sort, and be especially diligent in fostering a community ethic on the project. --Michael Snow