[WikiEN-l] A concept from Buckminster Fuller

[Jimmy Wales]

koyaanisqatsi at nupedia.com wrote:
> It seems to me that people should know what we're here for and respect
> that, and people who don't should be asked, kindly, if their
> priorities are straight in coming to the website.  As far as I'm
> concerned, the encyclopedia is what matters; there are plenty of other
> places online to chitchat, argue, or pontificate.  Try yahoo!groups,
> or livejournal, or usenet, or even slashdot.  Our community is unified
> in purpose, and quite frankly, anyone who is not here for that purpose
> belongs to a different community.  Banning comes about IMHO because
> people aren't seeing enough community pressure to quit being an
> asshole and/or get to work.

I would agree with this completely.  I fully support that we should
ask people, kindly (of course!), if their priorities are straight in
coming to the website.  And that we should exert careful social
pressure on people who are being problematic.

This doesn't mean yelling at them or shaming them, since those are the
techniques of Usenet, appropriate (perhaps) to that medium, but less
than helpful in a medium of collaboration.

> So how we determine someone has nothing to contribute?  Isn't that a
> bold decision?  How long do we allow someone to try to contribute
> before deciding it's not worth it?

I wish I knew an easy answer to these questions.  But I think there is
none.  We can only be thoughtful and tolerant for awhile, and apply
pressure for awhile, and then eventually and *with the feeling that
we've failed*, we should ban as a last resort.  And even then, the
door to redemption should almost always remain open.

> I believe that: 1) It should not be necessary to tell people to leave.
>  The community expectation should be so great that we are here to
> build an encyclopedia that trolls and vandals are immediately and
> thoroughly discouraged.  2)I'd rather not feel compelled to tell
> people to leave because they're interfering.  Most people realize it,
> and so most people don't dabble where they don't belong.  3) If
> someone proves a stubborn & insistent impediment, we should tell him
> or her to leave.  4) When we do tell someone to leave, we should be
> able to enforce it if necessary.

I think that's all basically correct.  It's hard to strike the right
balance, but one thing that I do think we can do a better job of is in
educating/indoctrinating newcomers that we play nicely here, that we
aren't here to fight and argue, but to produce.  That's a hard lesson to
learn, but if the social pressure is solidly in that direction, it will
usually work.

>  some people are simply not helpful.
>  We don't all agree who those people are, but I think we do agree that
> such people exist.  For those people who won't listen to reason and
> won't listen to community pressure, we should have an accurate means
> of blocking access.  We are accepting to people by default, but wasps
> should make their nests outside, not inside.

I agree.

> I daresay our standards are fairly open: come here to help build an
> encyclopedia.  Do not come here to chitchat, to troll, to play.  Work
> may be fun, work may not always be fun (I know this for certain), but
> work is why we are here.  We are open to people who want to help; we
> are not open to people who want to hinder.  We also, it seems (and
> here I'm thinking of Helga), are not open to people who want to help
> and consistently can not.  Jerry Lewis can play in the
> [[wikipedia:sandbox]]; he should keep his hands off the [[muriatic acid]].

Yes.