On Sun, 20 Oct 2002, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
--- 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.
Here's the problem, though. Again, I think KQ has the right approach, but it doesn't solve every problem along these lines. With all due respect, in my opinion, Fred really doesn't know what he's talking about on this topic, and it requires a great deal of patience to go through an article from someone who does not understand the subject (but thinks he does).
Reasonable people do not react in the way that Fred has reacted, I think. Suppose I were to have written an article on something I know a little about, but which I am very far from being an expert--digital cameras, say. Then someone who were more of an expert were to came along and said, "Look, this article is totally garbage. You didn't get half of the stuff right," and then replaced it with something that was better-informed, I'd like to think that I would totally understand. Moreover, if the person took the time to go through, line by line, what was wrong with my article, I would probably be abjectly apologetic.
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.
I'm not talking about the whole project. In this article, he certainly has been trying to push a specific agenda, though it's possible he doesn't quite realize that.
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.
Well, that certainly wasn't my point!
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.
I appreciate the attention you're giving this, Stephen, but this doesn't help. The problem decidedly *isn't* that we haven't spent enough time on it (the original, awful article was up there for many months).
Wikipedia should not *have to be* about *everyone* who wants to collaborate on an article gets an equal seat at the table on every article, with all of their views expressed. Sometimes, people can be wrong; and they don't know that they're wrong, because they just don't know enough about the topic. That's my point.
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.
Again, while I agree that it's important to be civil and I agree with the above sentiments, but I am skeptical that it's a new or growing problem. I mean, we've *always* had trouble of this sort. You'd think I'd know how to deal with it by now...
Larry