[WikiEN-l] Quitting Wikipedia and wanted you to know why.

[Matt Brown]

On 10/8/06, Stephen Streater <sbstreater at mac.com> wrote:
> There is a general distrust of dynamism,
> and this is a cultural flaw here which I am
> happy to do my bit to neutralise.

I'm glad.

Related it a trend towards ... the validation and amplification of
hurt feelings (perhaps there's a better way to word that?).
Inevitably feelings will get hurt sometimes;  like all online forums,
it's easy to misunderstand, easy to speak rash words, easy to be
thoughtless.  I think that part of 'assume good faith' - the part that
gets forgotten - is about forgiving others for things, about believing
that others (especially long term contributors) mean well even if they
occasionally have boneheaded moments, about that almost-forgotten
"wikilove" concept, not seen much of late.

Part of it is because, as the project grows, it gets easier for one's
voice to be ignored and easier for one to never even notice that
something is being done until it's done.  Some people feel personally
slighted when not consulted.  It's not deliberate, people.  And
frankly, since the project's so huge, we are going to have to make
decisions without consulting all 1000 admins and all the active
contributors.  (Almost) no decision on Wikipedia is forever binding,
so we don't need to sink into organisational paralysis out of fear
that people won't be getting their say.

-Matt