[WikiEN-l] What is happening to the community

[Wily D]

On Thu, Mar 6, 2008 at 1:08 PM, Oskar Sigvardsson
<oskarsigvardsson at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
Even today, as a vetern user of a couple years, I find it very easy to
edit articles and only run into helpful, friendly people.  I just
follow a few simple rules.

Don't choose articles to edit by hearing about them on enwiki-l

Don't choose articles to edit by hearing about them on WP:AN or WP:AN/I

Don't choose articles to edit by hearing about them on User_talk:Jimbo_Wales

Don't choose articles to edit by hearing about them on
wikipediareview.com (.org?)

Just go edit something you're interested in, know a little about, and
be polite.  Almost everyone will be very nice to you.  Editors just
seem to gravitate towards ZOMG DRAMAZ centres as they gain experience
- but if you deliberately go the other way, you'll find those centres
are only a tiny part of our universe.

Cheers
WilyD