[WikiEN-l] What is happening to the community

[Brock Weller]

On Wed, Mar 5, 2008 at 4:00 PM, SlimVirgin <slimvirgin at gmail.com> wrote:

> Erik Möller wrote in another thread:
>
> "[T]he real substance here is the destructiveness on the margins of
> our own community; that is what we must address. Wikimedia has
> cultivated a tolerance for open hostility. If we see ourselves as a
> community with a shared purpose, let's start acting like one. That
> doesn't mean blindly following the leader - I have had my fair share
> of arguments with Jimmy over the years - but it does mean rejecting
> the destructive, malicious behavior that we have seen in recent days."
>
> Erik is right. What is happening to the community is the real issue.
> Even when I joined Wikipedia as a relative latecomer in 2004, the
> sense of community and shared purpose was still palpable. People fell
> out, of course, and made mistakes, but AGF wasn't an empty gesture or
> a rule we blindly followed. We assumed good faith because we were all
> here to give of our time, without payment or any benefit other than a
> feeling of satisfaction, to produce something that might help to
> educate and enlighten other people. In exchange, we hoped that others
> would educate and enlighten us. It was the most inspiring idea I'd
> ever come across, that people all over the world could unite to
> benefit each other in that way.
>
> But suddenly Wikipedia became very popular, and there was more money
> than before, and people started jockeying for position, and now we're
> tearing each other apart.
>
> Everyone involved in this, no matter how right they feel they are, has
> to somehow muster the strength and courage to put their individual
> interests to one side and focus on the project, because it really is a
> wonderful, unique, awe-inspiring thing we're involved in here.  I
> think we forget this because we see it from the inside. We get jaded.
>
> The question for good people on all sides is: what can we do now to
> help save and protect this community and its ideals?
>
> Sarah
>
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I'm one hundred percent with slim here. I joined in that same 2004 window,
when we enculturated new comers, brought editors into the fold and we all
shared purpose and goals. As much as I hate melodramatic comments, we need
to start looking at ways to save our project here, because we just got
slapped in the face with the reality that we're not only not on different
pages here, but our books are staging fights against each other. Jimmy may
have fucked up, it really looks like he has, but thats simply a sideshow to
our larger problem: our community simply doesn't exist as a whole anymore.

-- 
-Brock