On Sat, May 23, 2015 at 9:18 AM, Andy Mabbett andy@pigsonthewing.org.uk wrote:
How can we [l]itigate against this, while making our projects more social?
Hi Andy, regarding your question I guess there is no definite answer, perhaps it is something inherent to social systems, so in a way there is nothing to be done, but instead accepted. If cliques appear naturally, then let them be, let them manifest as user groups, or as sub-communities, or as wikiprojects and give them the space to be born and to die. Through try-and-fail many will appear, and only the most friendly ones should be left on the long run. Perhaps a more interesting question is "what can I do as individual to avoid creating damaging cliques or behaviors?"
Again, there is no definite answer, or if there is one, there is one answer for each one of us. However it is healthy to increase user awareness, and to use this awareness to engage people in a more constructive way. For instance, I cannot choose how you are going to react to my words, but I can choose how I react to your words, I can be calm to a great extent, specially because I met you in person and I know who you are and what are your circumstances.
If I hadn't met you in person and we had a difficult argument, perhaps my patience would be less, because humans are just like that, we spend less time dealing with the unknown (which might me worthless) than with the known (which might be more appreciated). So in a way it is a matter of finding that appreciation for other contributors, which can only happen when knowledge is gathered about who they are, which in turn makes it difficult to make it online because we want to respect privacy, but it is very easy to apply it in real life environments because each one is free to create their own story.
I hope that my little rant makes sense, and it conveys clearly the importance of IRL meetings to foster a healthy communication in online environments.
Cheers, Micru