[Wikipedia-l] Kooks and trolls: Rant about losing great contributors

[Michael R. Irwin]

Gareth Owen wrote:
> 
> "Steve Callaway" <sjc at easynet.co.uk> writes:
> 

>If we are not careful and persistent "Helgas" are not
> > either a) educated into the program or b) politely but requested to desist,
> > the damage to the project will be considerable.

I have been on the other end of this stick a couple
of times.   

Regarding a.)  The educational materials available have
improved recently due to April's rewrite efforts.

Regarding b.) In my view, the politeness could use 
some work.  Not that I am blameless, but I found the
many initial interactions often needlessly rude.  Nor did
even partial attempts to comply with abrubt demands in
ways that seemed consistent with stated policies seem
to appease some "regulars".

A further fact, in my view, that there are no hard policy 
guidelines articulated consistently and ratified by any 
community process beyond discussion and periodic lynching.
Dr. Kemp refered to running off uncooperative contributors
as the only that has been successful to date.  Yet it was
not successful enough to guarantee her continued continuous
participation.   Some feel this indicates that insufficent
banning is occuring too late,  this does not account for
the past perceived success in running off people percieved
to be causing problems.

Several on the list have now indicated that they are
tired of discussing some issues.   Some have announced
that they will filter certain topics.  Others seem to
think that discussion should proceed at a pace appropriate
to allow them to personally keep up with all topics.

Mob rule or civilized consensus building may suffice
for a fairly large project.  Clearly it has sufficed
for much progress on the Wikipedia to date.

An appropriate question is whether it will suffice
for massive participation and how soon we would like
to be ready for effective massive participation.

I think someone else on the list proposed 5,000
regular contributors as massive and useful in completing
the Wikipedia in a reasonable period of time.   We currently
estimate that we have 200.   If the current volume
of this mailing is too controversial in discussing
meta issues, picture it with 25 times the current volume.

If we are to have a massive project team then even
valued contributors must learn to pace themselves or
work within the current limitations of our processes
effectively to avoid "burn out".

I am leery of a trolls or us type of process for
several reasons:

1.  I have already been attacked as a troll, so 
this policy clearly threatens me.

2.  What happens when the controversy is between
several valued contributors?  If this is our ultimate
controversy resolution then we inevitably lose someone 
valued in this scenario.

3.  As much of the local controversy seems to arise
from the meta issue of how to go about resolving
controversy as from the original controversy itself.

4.  It seems a common community viewpoint that the 
contributing regulars views must take precedence
over newcomers.   This is inherently defective.

I shall attempt to support this conclusion as follows:

When or after how much contribution do I become 
a "regular"?   If the answer is a support network
of fellow contributors, so shut up and take notes,
then we are merely trading present meta discussions
within small groups for larger meta discussions with
larger groups in the future.

In my view, prototyping is best done early and
often as possible.   This is a bias from engineering
training.  Nevertheless, if it is the community 
consensus to wait, then I am quite capable of that.

I will seriously entertain any public requests to limit
my posts to the list to a specific quantitative rate.
I will voluntarily comply for a specified test period
with guideline specified if the current community at large 
will commit (by consensus) to the same limiting rate for 
all individuals.

This gives a seniority bias to those went before
and helped articulate the current customs such that
they are in accordance with their personal worldviews
and moral frameworks but I am willing to wait and build 
seniority, if that is an equitably distributed requirement
from here on.

Regards,
Mike Irwin