[WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

[Marc Riddell]

on 2/25/07 8:38 PM, Michael Snow at wikipedia at earthlink.net wrote:

> 
> In fact, most of the
> community's social problems arise because people are too "clueless" or
> "crazy" to recognize the limits of their competence.

Emotional maturity includes "I know that I can not know".

We need to figure 
> out how we can better push for more competent contributors.

Emotional or intellectual?
> 
> Wikipedia's best contributors are those wise enough to know their own
> limitations. They hardly ever cause a stir because they don't overreach
> these limitations, or else they put the necessary effort into overcoming
> them. Unfortunately, far too many people lack either the self-awareness
> or self-control to respect their own limitations. That means we have to
> apply external controls. This may range from deleting content that is
> not helpful at all, to mercilessly editing poor-quality but salvageable
> content, to evicting contributors who are an overall detriment to the
> project. The proper uses of such remedies are tricky issues that require
> an abundance of good judgment. The community's ability to cope with that
> problem, the constant need for good and careful judgment, has not scaled
> very well.

Now you are presenting to the culture. It is long overdue here.

Marc Riddell