OMG I MET ROBERT I LUV HIM SO is disruptive. "Does anyone know where he was educated? It isn't listed" is potentially helpful. And so on.
On Wed, Aug 4, 2010 at 1:44 AM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Oliver Keyes wrote:
Agreed. A good example; on the English Wikipedia, I'm a massive law nerd with 40-something legal GAs and FAs to my name. I'd never even have
studied
the subject if it wasn't for a group of Wikipedians, some of whom have
later
helped me with or collaborated on articles. The importance of social interaction cannot be understated, and it's why I have no truck with some
of
the more severe "OMG WIKIPEDIA IS NOT MYSPACE" people. People come here
to
build a collaborative encyclopaedia, yes, not to socially interact - but
the
key word there is "collaborative". Social contact is inevitable and incredibly helpful to us as a community; hells, it's what *makes us* a community and not just a hundred thousand people who independently agree that Wikipedia is nifty.
One of the more annoying of the anti-social species is the kind that becomes annoyed when talk page comments wander a little off topic, and claim that this is contrary to the talk page's single purpose of improving what's in article space. The improvement to the article from these off topic comments may be somewhat oblique, but it can improve one's understanding of the topic and of the person commenting.
Ray
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