[Foundation-l] "antisocial production"

[Fred Bauder]

>
>>> 'Forget altruism. Misanthropy and egotism are the fuel of online
>>> social
>>> production. That's the conclusion suggested by a new study of the
>>> character
>>> traits of the contributors to Wikipedia. A team of Israeli research
>>> psychologists gave personality tests to 69 Wikipedians and 70
>>> non-Wikipedians. They discovered that, as New Scientist puts
>>> it<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16349-psychologist-finds-wikipedians
>>> -grumpy-and-closedminded.html>,
>>> Wikipedians are generally "grumpy," "disagreeable," and "closed to new
>>> ideas."'
>>> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2009/06/the_sour_wikipe.php
>>>
>>> I wonder how the mailing list will react....
>>>
> on 6/27/09 6:07 PM, Fred Bauder at fredbaud at fairpoint.net wrote:
>
>>
>> Always knew this, Wikipedia is generally an outlet for folks who have
>> low
>> interpersonal social skills, or at least insufficient outlets for self
>> expression. As to "Disagreeable and closed to new ideas", that is
>> policy,
>> Wikipedia is a compendium of established knowledge, not a place for new
>> ideas, which we call original research.
>>
> C'mon, Fred; it is "policy" to be "disagreeable"? And as for "closed to
> new
> ideas"; that may be appropriate to the body of the encyclopedia itself,
> but
> it applies very much in the various Mailing Lists & Talk Pages. Take a
> good
> look.
>
> Marc Riddell
>

OK, an error, it is not policy to be disagreeable, policy is to be civil,
and on the mailing lists and irc too, but I'll stand by the observation
that Wikipedia is a dull place, "Just the facts, Ma'am", and intended to
be.

Fred