Well, I'd initially discarded this reply because I thought it was too
long winded to be useful.
I see now that the thread is just becoming a language debate, and I
don't think that was the intention of Jimbo's post at all.
Perhaps I can scare away the language debate with my excessive
volumolonous response.
On 11/7/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
Each person's list of things like this will be
slightly different, but
the overall point is that I am beginning to sense a need with the
community for us to turn inward, to change some of our very open
policies which lead people to endless new-project proposals and
new-language speculation.
Jimbo,
I too have felt some of these feelings: I've encountered some new
users, monthlings often, so eager to readdress things I though were
finally settled months ago... who stumble in bright faced and excited
with proposals about permitting MP3 files or abandoning NPOV,
unburdened by the hard-earned knowledge of the depth and complexity of
the issue at hand. I've felt the fear that the misguided idea, if
left unanswered, will find fertile ground in the minds our newest
editors, so great in number, and the resulting frustration with the
tired rehashing of the same discussion we had before, knowing full
well that in six more months we will do it once again.
...and I've only been watching wikipedia for two years, editing
actively only one... I can only imagine what it must be like for
long-timers, perhaps frustrated with me for some of the same reasons I
have been frustrated by others.
We are not, however, the first community to experience growing pains.
What might be somewhat more interesting in our case is that unlike the
[[Endless September]] of Usenet is that or difficulty with growth
right now stems as much from finding a number of systems which work
well for us, and the desire to preserve the value they bring, as it
comes from a difficulty in scaling our new user acclimation process to
meet the increased influx.
I've seen some good work done to improve the situation; For example,
some users have taken on the task of refactoring discussion pages to
convert them into material suitable for new users. I believe this work
is important and certainly laudable, but I do not think it has had
much impact. I fear that the easy and instant gratification of jumping
in with 'new' ideas is simply more attractive to most people compared
to the alternative of reading up on their subject of interest.
As concerning as the difficulties brought by community growth are, I
think we need to consider remedies for these problems with great
caution and skepticism. Our user churn rate is fairly high, and I
think that this is natural because our needs change from time to time
and users adjust their involvement because of personal factors as well
as the needs of the project. I fear that if we adjust things so that
slowing change becomes an important goal we risk ending up with a
community which is primarily concerned with preventing change and
enforcing rules, over and above the true goals of the project. It is
my firm belief that our strong focus on the goals of the project over
all other concerns is the only factor preventing us from being mired
in social hierarchies and politics. Just as NPOV allows people of many
views to work together on an article, the focus on our goals allows
people of many skills sets and modes of interaction to collaborate on
the project.
As you pointed out above, everyone's list will be different, and as
you allude, we need to address the cause, not the symptoms. However, I
think in our look inward we must ask ourselves if we've really done
all we can do short of decreasing openness before we take that step,
and with every change we make we must ask ourselves: is the
frustration we now suffer worth the risk of decreasing our
adaptability and the risk of excluding excellent new ideas an
contributors.
In the interest of preventing this message from being not terribly
useful, here are some points which I am willing to help further, where
I think could help with this matter...
*For ideas which don't involve an active conflict with established
activities, we should make a greater effort to encourage users to
"show us the code". Don't ask everyone to respond to speculation of
every "great new idea", just implement it and see what happens.
*As mentioned above, we should continue refactoring old discussions
into digested versions, make an effort to direct uninformed users to
the pages. When a issue reemerges, leverage the frustration positively
by taking the effort to unearth the old discussions rather than
allowing yourself to be trapped in another rehashing.
Now, I'm going to go start digging up material on permitted file
formats on Wikipedia. :)