[WikiEN-l] How to work better with brittle users?

[Christopher Mahan]

--- David Gerard <fun at thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:

> 
> This is a question that has occurred to me in the context of
> arbitration,
> and how to avoid it.
> 
> There's a common personality type for trouble on Wikipedia: brittle
> in
> interactions with others, can't tolerate ambiguity, so gets into
> rules-lawyering. Sees "common sense" and "judgement" mostly as
> excuses to
> exercise bias, not as recognition that all rules are fluid in the
> pursuit
> of our goal.
> 
> I am not thinking of any individual, but of a general type I've
> noticed. I
> think something about Wikipedia will tend to attract them. I would
> *guess*
> it's something that attracts people from further up the autistic
> spectrum
> than the general populace, but that's just speculation.
> 
> The point is that they're good and hard-working contributors, but
> can get
> difficult to work with. And putting them on a processing line that
> leads to
> arbitration strikes me as not being a good thing. Is there a better
> way?
> I welcome your thoughts and speculation.


Working in software development, I can tell you that the people on
wikipedia very much resemble those who write code for a living.
Leading programmers is often referred to as "herding cats".

See http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html for an
interesting  essay on group dynamics.

I would say that reminding people often of the goals of wikipedia is
rather important.



Chris Mahan
818.943.1850 cell
chris_mahan at yahoo.com
chris.mahan at gmail.com
http://www.christophermahan.com/

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