--- On Sat, 11/12/10, ???? wiki-list@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote:
People don't read they react. In the UK a couple of years ago there was a petition that gathered 50,000 signatures against a proposal to ban all photography in public spaces. As a point of fact there was no such proposal.
This received over 10,000 responses and a huge number of point ny point rebuttals despite the fact that it is obviously a joke based around the Brady Bunch. http://www.adequacy.org/public/stories/2001.12.2.42056.2147.html
As the respondents to the above were pretty much the same constituents as wikipedians (young, male, technically savvy) why would any one think that exactly the same thing isn't going on with those currently voting?
There is that, and there is also something Scott MacDonald wrote a couple of years ago; he said it in relation to BLPs, but it applies more widely. It's one of the most perceptive things I've read about WP:
'Wikipedia isn't governed by the thoughtful or the informed – it is governed by anyone who turns up. There are a small core of people who like playing wiki as an in-house role-playing game and simply deny real-world consequences that might limit their freedom of action. There are a larger group who are too immature or lazy to think straight. And then there are all those who recognise "something must be done", but perpetually oppose the something that's being proposed in favour of a "better idea". The mechanism is rather like using a chat-show phone-in to manage the intricacies of a federal budget – it does not work for issues that need time, thought, responsibility and attention. I doubt this problem can be fixed – since it needs structural change to decision making – which is impossible for precisely the same reasons.'
Put that together with our demographics
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WMFstratplanSurvey1.png
and there is no reason to be surprised by anything. And thus we plod on ...
I sometimes think the most addictive thing about Wikipedia is that there is so much wrong with it. It's like seeing someone pushing a huge load on a three-wheeled cart, which is about to topple over. It's a natural instinct to run over and lend a hand to stabilise the thing. Meanwhile, there is another person who actually *wants* the cart to fall over and starts pushing from the other end ... et voilà, two new editors.
Andreas