[Foundation-l] Social issues for the newer projects

[Michael Snow]

These are some thoughts prompted by the incident on Wikinews recently 
discussed on this list. They are general in nature, and decidedly *not* 
directed at any particular individual. I venture to say that anyone who 
thinks they know what individuals I have in mind is *highly* likely to 
be mistaken. However, I think the general principles are important to 
consider, especially for those who are trying to shepherd the 
development of Wikimedia's younger projects (i.e., everything but 
Wikipedia).

Wikipedia is clearly our most successful project. It attracts the bulk 
of our contributors and is easily the best at producing quality content. 
In the process, it has become a solid, well-functioning community. This 
is because it consists of people who can collaborate well, and for those 
who cannot, the system allows people of good will to exert various 
pressures until the problem cases either change their ways or leave. 
These factors are self-reinforcing and thus allow for continued 
improvement (this is not predestined, and we should avoid complacency, 
but that is a topic for another day).

None of the other projects, in my opinion, is yet particularly 
successful at any of these things - attracting contributors, creating 
quality content, or developing a sustainable community. They are still 
in earlier stages, so I'm not saying they can't, or even that they 
should be further along than they are. And they do have fine content 
occasionally, but need the contributor base and the community atmosphere 
in order to bring the content to a higher level overall.

The contributor base is a huge problem, because none of the other 
projects brings in enough new people on its own; they all grow by virtue 
of Wikipedia's coattails. But people strongly attracted to Wikipedia are 
more likely to stay there, so the other projects end up with those who, 
for whatever reason, did not fit in.

Why do some people not fit in? In some cases it's due to legitimate 
disagreements over how broadly Wikipedia should extend, so we often talk 
about other projects as ways to accommodate content not included in an 
encyclopedia. This is fine, and people who are less comfortable in the 
Wikipedia community for this reason are not a problem. Let them work on 
the project they like best, and they can team up with those people who 
never would have even tried Wikipedia, but contribute now because they 
really love the idea of Wiktionary or Wikinews or whichever project.

The problem is with people who don't quite fit in with our community 
ideals. By this I don't just mean NPOV, but the need for collaboration 
and consensus-building. This kind of person starts out on Wikipedia, and 
would likely have stayed there if they had been successful in that 
community. They don't leave on account of a block, nor are they even 
obviously violating any policy. But when they grow frustrated with the 
give and take of the process (not having their way, essentially), they 
migrate to one of the other projects to try again.

These people, if there are too many in a project, will drag the 
community down instead of up, and the content will ultimately suffer as 
well. I am concerned at having observed several cases (again, no names) 
follow this pattern. I'm not talking about people trying to push a 
political agenda in one place and then the next - those are easier to 
recognize and deal with. Rather, I mean people whose Wikipedia careers 
show that they have difficulty recognizing community sentiment and 
understanding when a consensus is developing. The problem may manifest 
itself in a different way on the next project, but its cause remains the 
same.

One also hopes that people can learn and do better with a fresh start in 
a new project. Some of these users will improve and avoid their 
Wikipedia errors, but some will not. I think it is important for those 
trying to guide the newer projects to watch for problems of this sort, 
and be especially diligent in fostering a community ethic on the project.

--Michael Snow