Florence Devouard wrote:
It seems to me that "wikilove" is something most of us would like to see as one of our value (a mix of respect for others, what they do, what they believe in, and a desire to listen to them rather than just straight telling them they are jerks if they believe in blablabla...). It is a desire of empathy for others. For some of us, it is because it is the type of environment they prefer. For others, very practically, because it is *good* for the project to have a great diversity of approaches and skills, and we can not have this diversity if there is not a minimum of tolerance and trust.
This said, we can not make wikilove a rule, a policy, but certainly a guideline in how we expect editors to behave one with each other.
Maybe this is what distinguishes a value from a rule or policy.
We can envision a collaborative environment where empathy and mutual respect have clear constructive benefits, but those of us with that vision are still a minority. The competitive model that favors the superior performance of one person to the exclusion of all others is not about to die easily. It has too long been a part of fundamental social structures, including educational systems.
On some websites, the people are not expected to behave nicely with each others. In some TV shows, you are even expected to be nasty and vicious with the other people on the stage.
Things haven't changed much from the time when people were put into the Roman Colosseum to fight with lions.
I would hope that the majority of us would prefer respect and tolerance at a minimum. Limits of tolerance are very quickly reached when a very racist person, or a pedophile, or a extrem-right wing person is editing. But still, we do not ban them on the spot, right ?
These extreme views may be the loudest, but they are not the most important. They are blatantly obvious, and thus the most easily monitored.
Wikilove can only be a guidelines, a hope.
That does not mean that this guidelines is always respected. Yes, there are edit wars, yes, there are personal attacks, yes, there is cyberstalking etc... and yes the english wikipedia is not always very friendly. But is this really the type of working environment we are looking for ?
It's a work in progress with much to be done.
Ec