[WikiEN-l] Community

[John Lee]

On Jan 1, 2008 9:33 AM, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net> wrote:
> <snip>
>
> Also, there could be something similar to a Barnstar that we place on our
> User Pages ourselves saying something like "I am a proud Member of the
> Wikipedia Community" with a design such as a globe similar to the WP Globe,
> but with a figure of a person at the N, S, E & W locations.
>
> I would like to see placed at the top of the Wikipedia Main Page, a banner
> that says something like, "Be honest - be fair - be assertive - be civil."

I would be opposed to these purely for utilitarian reasons. There is
no evidence to suggest that these foster the culture we desire. We
*feel* they would accomplish something, but all evidence points in the
opposite direction. Templated nice messages don't foster good feelings
amongst anyone other than the most naive or new. Esperanza did pretty
much exactly what you propose, and unsurprisingly, died an agonising
death. They were creepy from the start - I never bought into this idea
that hurling templates of politeness and barnstars of civility would
actually accomplish anything, and indeed, this was acknowledged by the
community when Esperanza finally closed down.

I see civility and a sense of community as desirable ends in
themselves, but not something you can approach directly. Being too
direct only makes it too easy to game the system (see: Esperanza), and
forcing civility upon us is perhaps the epitome of incivility itself.
These things have to be fostered by indirect means. They are not
something you can easily create by slapping a few stickers on
someone's talk page or exhorting people to be nice.

Johnleemk