[WikiEN-l] Scott McCloud on Wikipedia

[Marc Riddell]

on 2/25/07 10:29 PM, John Lee at johnleemk at gmail.com wrote:

> Okay, instead of bickering over whether there is a problem with the status
> quo, let's assume there is a problem. What should we do to solve this
> problem? I haven't seen many ideas about what ought to be done to resolve
> the ostensible issues.
> 
> I'm not saying there isn't a problem, nor am I saying it's impossible to
> solve it. However, I think it's important to recognise that you can't expect
> perfection from an innately imperfect project. When you have something on
> the scale of Wikipedia, involving so many mortals, the errors multiply by
> each other pretty quickly, and add up to some massive problems. We need to
> solve them, and the status quo is what we came up with. It's clunky, it
> sucks, but it's better than nothing.
> 
> The problem, as I see it, is that there's just far too little common sense.
> Defining common sense is of course an ordeal I am not about to delve into,
> but the point of our policies and guidelines is to enforce a semblance of
> common sense on people lacking it. ŠŠŠŠŠŠ
> 
> Johnleemk

Common sense or common purpose? What common sense needs to be applied to
accomplish this common purpose?

I see a great deal of the problem being many persons with many different
agendas and purposes for being in WP itself. If a degree of common sense is
needed to accomplish the common goal of ³A² then all persons must be trying
to accomplish ³A². If others are there to accomplish ³B², their ³common
sense² will be applied and measured differently.

Solutions? That is going to take some creative, collaborative thinking with
all participants working toward the same common goal. But first, there must
be an agreement about what the problem - and its cause - really is.

There seems to be a great deal of resistance to the idea that many of the
problems within WP involve the very culture itself. This speaks to me of a
great deal of denial on the part of the Community Members.

Denial is saying ³anything but that². To admit that the ³that² is the
problem, might mean having to confront, and possibly get rid of, the ³that².
If a chemical dependent admits that the chemical is the ³that² that is
killing them, they might have to give up that ³that².  ³Anything but that!²


Marc Riddell