Hi all,
I thought you guys might be very interested to hear this.
The first Wikipedia to have a "meetup" nearly as soon as it was founded was the Maltese Wikipedia.
The reason for this, as some of the more geographically-inclined may guess, is that Malta is a nation of islands, and most people live on the main island.
So, somebody suggested on the mainpage that they meet somewhere, and everybody worked it into their schedules and met -- the _very next day_.
We are talking about 12 people, all the current inhabitants of this Wikipedia.
The community dynamic is very different from any existing Wikipedia because these people have all seen each other, and if nessecary can meet face-to-face to discuss problems without much hassle.
I recognise that a similar type of thing exists on the Icelandic Wikipedia, and perhaps on the Faroese Wikipedia when its community grows larger, but the unique position of Malta was also responsible for its sudden growth from 0 to 12 active editors - people just told other people, and within the span of a week all these people were already involved.
I imagine that this is the ideal environment for a Wikipedia, because it is easier to solve problems, I think, when you know all the people and can discuss issues in person over a latte.
It will be interesting to see how this community develops!
Mark
Mark Williamson wrote:
The community dynamic is very different from any existing Wikipedia because these people have all seen each other, and if nessecary can meet face-to-face to discuss problems without much hassle.
It's worth noting that when the Dutch wikipedia had their symposium last fall, there was a similar effect -- esp. since Waerth came all the way from Thailand to be there. That is, the vast majority of major contributors and "famous people" were all there... even ones who were not getting along well at the time.
This is one of the disadvantages that en has compared to many other languages -- there is no realistic hope of ever getting together all the most famous people on en at the same time. (Unless someone wants to donate a huge amount of money to sponsor a conference where the travel for them is paid!)
--Jimbo
This is one of the disadvantages that en has compared to many other languages -- there is no realistic hope of ever getting together all the most famous people on en at the same time. (Unless someone wants to donate a huge amount of money to sponsor a conference where the travel for them is paid!)
--Jimbo
Right on ...... I would love to come to wikimania.But without sponsoring it would be impossible. I gues that is the situation for many "famous" Wikipedians!
Waerth/Walter
Jimmy Wales (jwales@wikia.com) [050423 22:49]:
This is one of the disadvantages that en has compared to many other languages -- there is no realistic hope of ever getting together all the most famous people on en at the same time. (Unless someone wants to donate a huge amount of money to sponsor a conference where the travel for them is paid!)
Meets have made the UK side of things feel slightly more cohesive. Though it would be Bad for it to fall into national clumps.
- d.
Sure - but still, the nations in question are still much larger than Malta, so a meeting is a semi-big deal and you have to plan for it a bit more than in Malta, where everybody just goes to a café which is pretty close to everybody. Also, the meets were only recent concepts in those cases, whereas on mt.wiki the idea arose almost instantly.
Mark
On 23/04/05, David Gerard fun@thingy.apana.org.au wrote:
Jimmy Wales (jwales@wikia.com) [050423 22:49]:
This is one of the disadvantages that en has compared to many other languages -- there is no realistic hope of ever getting together all the most famous people on en at the same time. (Unless someone wants to donate a huge amount of money to sponsor a conference where the travel for them is paid!)
Meets have made the UK side of things feel slightly more cohesive. Though it would be Bad for it to fall into national clumps.
- d.
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On 4/23/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
It's worth noting that when the Dutch wikipedia had their symposium last fall, there was a similar effect -- esp. since Waerth came all the way from Thailand to be there.
Minor correction: Waerth had already planned to come to the NL (for the first time in 5 years), and the date of the symposium was chosen to coincide with that. Doesn't change a iota about the fact that it was great meeting him (as well as all those others :-) ) in person.
Andre Engels
Mark Williamson wrote:
I imagine that this is the ideal environment for a Wikipedia, because it is easier to solve problems, I think, when you know all the people and can discuss issues in person over a latte.
Not only that, but you're probably not going to have too many personal attacks. I'd probably expect a much kinder environment with a plethora of WikiLove prancing happily in the fields ;)
Calling "some guy on the internet" a moron is a lot easier than telling the same thing to somebody you actually know. The community will be much more closely knit also, and newcomers would probably be more likely to meet face-to-face also if that's what all the other editors are doing.
I'd be interesting to see what percentage of the community has actually seen another face-to-face in a number of months.
Faraaz Damji wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
I imagine that this is the ideal environment for a Wikipedia, because it is easier to solve problems, I think, when you know all the people and can discuss issues in person over a latte.
Not only that, but you're probably not going to have too many personal attacks. I'd probably expect a much kinder environment with a plethora of WikiLove prancing happily in the fields ;)
Hm. I, on the other hand, am afraid that if a close circle of friends does all the work on one whole Wikipedia, it may end up glaringly POV.
Timwi ti 2005/4/25 ChS 05:02 sia-kong:
Faraaz Damji wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
I imagine that this is the ideal environment for a Wikipedia, because it is easier to solve problems, I think, when you know all the people and can discuss issues in person over a latte.
Not only that, but you're probably not going to have too many personal attacks. I'd probably expect a much kinder environment with a plethora of WikiLove prancing happily in the fields ;)
Hm. I, on the other hand, am afraid that if a close circle of friends does all the work on one whole Wikipedia, it may end up glaringly POV.
That's the downside of it, isn't it? It's conceivably more difficult to tell people you know that their edits could be better, particularly if the power relation outside of Wikipedia is uneven, as in the case of a student hesitating to revert another's edit, because the latter happens to be a professor in a nearby university. In this hypothetical case it is not so much a clique of friends pushing a POV as extra-Wikipedia social norms interfering with knowledge sharing.
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