Joseph Reagle a écrit:
Hello, I have a question about your article that appeared in Wired. One of my difficulties within the Wikipedia community, or, say for example, this e-mail list, is the large number of people one is likely to come across. It can be difficult to keep track of everyone, particularly in the context of editing a diverse set of web pages So, I was wondering how do people come to know of each other? In particular, for your article, how did you select the folks you did? Asked Jimbo? Looked at the top contributors?
Thanks!
At least for me, I come to know the others in watching what they say and do. When I notice someone put a wise or funny or creative comment a couple of times in a row, I go to his user page. I try to decipher the person a little bit. Then I go to his contributors list. Try again to see what could make him tick. Then I store the information somewhere. And go on noting what he writes. Usually, one day come where I think "oh, but X would be the perfect person for this". And I go ask the person :-) Hence meet him a bit more :-)
For the article, this is very simple. There was a meeting in New York in december. Some people show up at this meeting, and the journalist asked to be there as well. Those who wanted to talk to him surroundered him and he listened. Very naturally, most of those who showed up at the meeting are very involved contributors on the english wikipedia, so not very surprising they appear among the top contributors.
Ant