[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia as a cult

[Marc Riddell]

on 6/24/07 8:54 PM, michael west at michawest at gmail.com wrote:

> To Steve and Gabe the Count reference was unfair as an analogy.
> Secondly, communism is about discussing policy, but how many lowly editors
> ever get heard above the BOOMING voices of long established administrators
> and beuracrats on policy/guidline talk pages, who often snuff out comments
> with a nonsense or I formulated this ;-)
> 
> Marc, people do get a lot out of Wikipedia thats why many of us are still
> contributing. But editing goes far beyond the encyclopedia anyone can edit.
> It only become the encyclopedia anyone can edit after you have studied
> policy for 3 years. disgruntled first, second, third time edits will revert
> to vandalism unless we handle new and experienced editors much better than
> we do now.
> 
> Mike33

Mike, I understand better where you are coming from. The title of this
thread should have been "WP as a culture" (you left off the last 3 letters
:-)). And yes, how persons are treated within the WP Community has been a
topic of discussion for some time now. Perhaps someday that discussion will
become serious - with some serious, positive results.

Marc

> 
> On 25/06/07, Gabe Johnson <gjzilla at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> On 6/24/07, michael west <michawest at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Other places have drawn analogogies about Wikipedia as being akin to a
>>> cult.  I think it does have aspects of that. The same has been said
>> about
>>> Trotskyist groups.  I think that a better analogy would be that
>> Wikipedia
>>> looks like a Trotskyist group (though obviously not in any political
>> sense).
>>> 
>>> 
>>> - Wikipedians value themselves on the amount  "counts" they are at.
>>> - Wikipedians spend more time discussing policy than actually writing
>>> articles.
>>> - Wikipedians don't respond well to critism from outsiders.
>>> - Wikipedians have an Uber Mentor (Jimbo Wales).
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
>>> - Trotskyists value themselves on the amounts of "newspapers" they
>>> have sold.
>>> - Trotskyists spend more time discussing policy that actually doing
>>> groundwork.
>>> - Trotskyists would rather die than have a kind word for somebody who
>>> has left the movement.
>>> - Trotskyists have an Uber Mentor (Leon Trotsky, James P. Cannon,
>>> Gerry Healey, Posada, Tony Cliff, Ted Grant etc. etc).
>>> 
>>> Perhaps, many groups could be included not just Trotskyists (I have been
>> a
>>> Trotskyist for 18 years, and been part of various schisms within even
>> small
>>> groups), but use it as an example of how ordinary editors do get bogged
>> down
>>> in changing perception of policy and guidelines, which many, many
>> editors
>>> only get to hear about when they actually contribute.
>>> 
>>> Perhaps a closed Wikipedia is the way forward, we all know that
>> Wikipedia is
>>> not the encyclopedia everyone can edit.
>>> 
>>> There was much criticism of Esperanza and it ended up just being a
>> clubroom
>>> and block vote.  A New Esperanza type project would be helpful (wikilove
>> is
>>> too crass though) but as a way of helping new editors or editors who
>> tend to
>>> write new articles not get so fed up with process that they leave.
>>> 
>>> Would welcome any comments.
>>> 
>>> Mike33
>> 
>> It's true! Wikipedia *is* communism!
>> 
>> (I'm thinking we should have a pageg about that. [[WP:COMMUNISM]].)
>> 
>> Also, someone mentioned editcount. See [[WP:COUNT]]. ~~~~
>> 
>> --
>> Absolute Power
>> C^7rr8p£5 ab£$^u7£%y
>> 
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