[WikiEN-l] What is happening to the community

[Oskar Sigvardsson]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 11:53 AM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>  The strength of "Assume Good Faith" is that it's a good heuristic for
>  life in general. <snip>

That's a fantastic quote, David.

>  And *shit happens*, but people are unwilling to accept that it's
>  possible - they ignore the ridiculous fucked-up complexity and
>  emergent behaviour of evolved systems and keep looking for someone to
>  blame. It's the same place conspiracy theories and witch-hunting come
>  from.

Yeah I agree. While the arguments may have gotten a bit more vicious,
it's always been there (I remember basically the same discussion from
a year before, and before that, and it hasn't gotten significantly
worse), there was never a time (at least not that I can remember) that
was "peaceful", really, but then again I wasn't here from the
beginning.

Sarah commented that it seemed like there was much more spirit, much
more drive to do something good back when she started in 2004. I think
that has more to do with the fact that she was just starting out, more
than the relative peacefulness of that year. All of us here are old
dogs, who reads about every controversy and have definite views on
most issues that come up. Most of the community isn't like that.

I have a friend who started out a month or two ago, and he still feels
what Sarah felt in 2004. He has gotten into a few arguements, but they
have been settled amicably (everyone Aed GF) and he still feels that
initial rush that all of us felt in the beginning; the joys of
contributing. Doubtless, in six months or so, he will have been
properly disillusioned and in two years he will be wondering what
happened with all the civility there was in early 2008.

--Oskar