[WikiEN-l] Harassment sites

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net>:

>
>> On 15/10/2007, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
>>> on 10/15/07 12:39 PM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote:
>>
>>>> Yes. The community is important to the encyclopedia, but the
>>>> encyclopedia is more important than the community writing it.
>>
>>> This seems to be your personal POV throughout, David. Would you 
>>> consider the
>>> possibility of at least an equal balance between the two?
>>
>> on 10/15/07 2:47 PM, David Gerard at dgerard at gmail.com wrote:
>
>> I'm not sure how that could really work, though. The point of
>> gathering the community is to write the encyclopedia.
>
> I realize that.
>
>> It may be useful
>> to pretend otherwise at times
>
> I don't know what you mean by this statement.
>
>>
> David, I spend time reading many of the Talk, Discussion and whatever other
> Pages I have access to as a non-admin; and my informed read is that there
> are a great many very unhappy people in there. The mood is angry, the
> climate is cold, and the culture in trouble. And statements like "the
> Project is more important than the Community" not only reinforces the
> Members' feeling of second-class status, but serves, also, to give
> permission to those who would behave abusively to others.
>
> It's about attitudes, inclusion and respect. You are a very visible and
> vocal Member of the Wikipedia Community, and what you say carries more
> weight, with the more impressionable among us, than you may imagine within
> that Community.
>
>
> Marc

I think you are misinterpreting his statement. The bottom line is that the
Encyclopedia is the goal. The community is a means to that end. That doesn't
change that members should be respectful to each others because we need the
community to function.