[WikiEN-l] Psychological correlates of deletionism/inclusionism?

[Charles Matthews]

On 15 April 2013 16:43, Hex . <hex at downlode.org> wrote:
> On 14 April 2013 14:29, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Pretty much everything that's fucked up about Wikipedia is emergent
>> behaviour of people being a problem
>
>
> I think you mean "failure of management".

Well, it is an unsolved problem how to assign anyone to do anything in
a system where everyone self-assigns their tasks. If there were any
management, it would be unfair to label this "failure", I think. It is
a bit like dividing 0 by 0 and announcing the answer: not easy to
argue with, but the problem is rather with the question.

Actually a more accurate answer might be that WP clearly needs a
measure of contrarianism in its workforce, because otherwise everyone
would be working on the same, overmanned tasks. It would be remarkably
good luck if we just happened to have exactly the right amount of
contrariness.

To get back on topic, maybe, if one has a single-person writing
project, the psychological correlate of inclusionism is a complete
lack of self-criticism, and of deletionism is a kind of writer's
block. Which is sort of why the question is a crock. Any competent
writer avoids both: bins some stuff and gets on with something else if
a particular bit is being awkward.

Charles