The Cunctator (cunctator(a)kband.com) [050422 23:49]:
On 4/22/05 7:19 AM, "David Gerard"
<fun(a)thingy.apana.org.au> wrote:
> The Cunctator (cunctator(a)kband.com) [050422 20:47]:
>> It's really too bad that "How to
Destroy Wikipedia" seems to have gone down
>> the Memory Hole, because it's a fine example of me pouring gasoline on a
>> fire (in short, it was the inflammatory, negative version of "How to Build
>> Wikipedia" but you'd have to read it to understand) out of frustration
and
>> an unfortunate tendency toward sarcastic fatalism.
Whew--that was really abrasive, nigh abusive. What was
interesting is that
even though I totally pissed off and hurt both Jimbo and Larry with it, I
was able to mend fences with Jimbo once I convinced him I didn't mean to
attack him personally, was sorry for hurting him, and had both honest
concerns and a desire to make Wikipedia better. I was never able to convince
Larry I wasn't attacking him personally.
I hope you have nicer thoughts towards our lovely developers now as well!
As they freely point out, the way to get the software changed the way you
want is to write the features you think are missing ... note at least one
case (Tim Starling) of an editor turning almost entirely to MediaWiki
development and Wikimedia sytem administration because there just weren't
enough people doing it.
(For all the talk of Wikipedia being "the encyclopedia Slashdot built,"
I'm suspecting we have far less computer people than we do arts people
editing. Or more would idly turn their hand to MediaWiki. I'm learning PHP
specifically so I can do evil things to the software, first for myself then
for all you lovely people.)
- d.