Hoi, With due respect, the amount of wordage on our talk pages, IRC channels, mailing lists and even skype calls and conferences is such that I disagree with you. It is exactly because we do not foster communication that many people do not feel at home at Wikipedia. The first years of Wikipedia there were no social networking sites and Wikipedia gave a sense of community. Now that such sites are well established, we find that we do not find the new people that we so desperately want come to us.
Yes, we are about creating educational content in our Wikipedia, Wiktionary and .. and .. We have however our fair share of social problems and your appreciation of what improved social networking functionality has to offer is sadly wrong. Look at Wikia they have invested in a healthy community and it is paying off for them because they show a healthy grow.
Your suggestion of clubs at universities is in and of itself a good one. These clubs are welcome, they are able to bring us new contributors. The question I have for you is, do you realise that such a club is a social structure and effectively very much like what you dismissed in your proposal?
So in conclusion, we should care for our social networks and we should grow them in any way we can. You are right that the creation of educational content is what we achieve, but we should appreciate our social networks for what they do; they bring us and keep us together. Thanks, GerardM
On 19 June 2010 13:51, James Heilman jmh649@gmail.com wrote:
I have found some of the suggestions for increasing participation strange. Wikipedia is not a MMORG, it is not a social networking site, it is not a file/picture/video hosting service, it is an online encyclopedia. Some people like the first three. However trying to turn Wikipedia into a combination of them is not how we go about writing an encyclopedia. We need to attract people who are interested in writing an encyclopedia and need to drive away / direct to the appropriate venue those who are looking for something different.
My suggestion for increasing editor numbers would be to promote Wikipedia at Universities. McGill has a Wikipedia club. Promoting the formation of clubs at other Universities would have a positive influence. Currently most University students are female ( about 55% ) http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20091023110831548 however Asperger syndrome occurs 5 times more frequently in males than females. This might have something to do with the gender ratio we see. :-)
-- James Heilman MD, CCFP-EM, B.Sc.
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