--- Larry Sanger lsanger@nupedia.com wrote:
<snip to the end...>
Is there *anything* we can do, consistent with our policies of openness, to make the project more attractive to the best-qualified people, in the face of the above problem?
--Larry
I agree with KQ's suggestion. I think it's a matter of trying to work together. As an expert, your natural inclination is to replace an article that you don't think very much of with your own writing. Fred's natural reaction to this is to feel dismissed. The problem escalates from there.
This isn't the same situation as, say, "working" on an article with Helga Jonat. Fred (Hi Fred! Are you tuned in to this thread?) is a good contributor to the project, and isn't out to push a specific agenda all through Wikipedia. On the other side of the coin, you're obviously not intending to dismiss Fred as unimportant, nor are you trying to insult his intelligence.
Remember that you both have the same goal: to produce a good article on "reality". It seems that there's a clash of approaches here. "Reality" is an enormous topic, and a truly good article is not going to take shape in only a few weeks.
We're starting to see the growth of Wikipedia straining the sense of community. Take a look at the Wiki Life Cycle (http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?WikiLifeCycle). It's a remarkably accurate guide to the rise and fall of wiki communities. We are entering stage 17: "Decline Of Civility -- there are more strangers than friends, and assum[ing] good faith fails as reputation is fleeting." As more and more Wikipedians contribute, we have to be careful; it's getting easier to get into heated arguments, and these fights will de-stabilize a project that bases itself on openness.
Stephen G.
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