[WikiEN-l] A thought on community dynamics

[George Herbert]

On 10/8/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> on 10/8/07 10:52 AM, John Lee at johnleemk at gmail.com wrote:
>
> > http://www.gladwell.com/2005/2005_09_05_a_bakeoff.html
>
> > Gladwell's thesis is that although open source projects, which we can
> > probably loosely define to include ourselves, bring together great
> > expertise, but also create significant friction between the members of what
> > we call "the community".
>
> To study this properly we need to more closely define "the community" as it
> relates to the Wikipedia Project.

The community encompasses a bunch of smaller sub-communities, and the
dynamics there need to be reviewed as well...

>  <snip>
>
> > The question is: have we on Wikipedia reached a point where our community is
> > too big that the negative friction overwhelms the positive value of our
> > expertise?
>
> In this case size does not matter when considering the negative friction.
> What does matter is the individual contributor's ability to interact in a
> constructive way with another contributor. You can have a group of a
> thousand persons, and, if each of these persons has the positive
> interpersonal skills to communicate with another, much can be accomplished.
> On the other hand, you can have a group of ten where the majority of them
> don't play well with others - and you will have a gridlock disaster.
>
> The problems are not with the Community, but with the individual members who
> make up that community.
>
> Marc Riddell

It's not just with individual members - there are issues (such as fair
use, and inclusionism vs deletionism) which have highly socially
functional, play-well-with-groups "core wikipedians" at each others'
metaphorical throats at regular intervals.

Legitimate major disagreements about what we're here for are a big deal.

That said, those disagreements tend to be argued in a respectful
manner for the most part.  The serious disruption seems to be
individuals who are at least at times interpersonally abrasive or
abusive.

The problem is "at times", or contextual abrasive/abusiveness... many
of these people are also excellent core 0.1% contributors most of the
time, or in most contexts.  But have a hot button, or situationally
can be pushed into the alternate behavior.

Those who are not also good project participants in terms of
contributions and so forth tend to get community-blocked or banned off
stage left fast enough to not be a major ongoing problem, though a few
ongoing widespread abuse cases are exceptions.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com