Just a comment in general and not a reply to anyone specific.
The ultimate goal of Wikipedia is building an Encyclopedia, and all the activities around it (Talk pages, discussion pages, IRC channels and so on) are intended to support these goals. Sure, we have a friendly discussion on a talk page every now and then, but most of our efforts are related to improving Wikipedia. Some people join us because they love a free information society. Other join us because they like writing or want to share knowledge. And some people just enjoy reading Wikipedia, making small corrections every now and then. The reasons to join are legion - Of course they equally include spamming, PoV pushing and vandalizing as well but i will be ignoring the negative ones for now.
Yet Wikipedia is not a social network or a game site. We are certainly a community, but we are not myspace, facebook or youtube just to name a few. People should be here to create an encyclopedia, not to play games, chat or whatever. People who join for those reasons are likely not here to create an encyclopedia in the first place, and there are other sites on the web which satisfy their desires a lot better then we can. I do not believe in the citizendium model where only verified experts receive full privileges while the normal people receive a function somewhere in the back, but at the very least we should draw a line between "Interested in creating an encyclopedia" and "Not here to create an encyclopedia". If we go the social network route we will soon be swarmed with people that add literally nothing at all to the project itself ("Give me Kudo's." - "Oh, you like kittens to? Lets chat!" - "i found the secret article after just 10 minutes!"). Sure, our editor count might rise if we offer diversions, but this is similar to edit count - Quality over Quantity.
If anything i would say there are two types of editors who may quit - the one's who don't like Wikipedia, and the ones who don't understand Wikipedia. The former group are the PoV pushers, the people who are not really interested in writing an encyclopedia, the vandals and the spammers. The second group consists out of people who simply don't get all the rules, who find the Wikisyntax to difficult, who get warned when they try to edit and so on. If anything we should focus or recruitment efforts on the second group, as they are the ones who are potentially interested in helping with Wikipedia. We certainly should not be changing Wikipedia just to cater to the former group.
For now we will just have to be satisfied with the editors that do join us. Writing an encyclopedia is not the only thing one can do in his free time, and some people simple prefer other diversions. That doesn't mean we shouldn't spread the word about Wikipedia to interest people, but neither does it mean that we should adapt Wikipedia for the sake of attracting the largest amount of people we can.
~Excirial
On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 10:29 PM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On Sat, Jun 19, 2010 at 7:53 PM, Keegan Peterzell keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
My jaw just dropped. While I know these are ideas intended to help
increase
the socialization, this is turning Wikipedia into youtube. The day that happens I'm resigning all my permissions and packing my bags. Softening notability? Fantasy articles? Games? Live comments? No thanks.
While I would like to see good articles about every episode of whatever on Wikipedia, this was not the point.
The point is to make "personal space" on Wikimedia projects. Adding features to the profile (now: Special:Preferences) will increase number of those who are willing to stay on project.
I don't think the idea of encouraging women to participate needs these things. I have a fierce dislike for what I consider to be the
mind-numbing
distraction that social networking sites provide. I'd rather use
Wikimedia
projects to stimulate my mind, not kill time.
You should be able to turn off those features.
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