[Wikipedia-l] the process that isn't written

[David Gerard]

Can anyone think how to rephrase this better? Would it actually get
through to anyone who needs to hear it?

(I eagerly await all the people saying I should read what I wrote.)

====
Cultural expectations

These are the things we do that aren't actually codified. The feel of
the project. The social structure. This stuff is process too, but if
you contradict it you'll really upset people. Breaking a rule is just
breaking a rule; but breaking a cultural expectation is breaking
people's basic assumptions about the fabric of this small world of
ours. And upset volunteers fade away.

If you think you're keeping to the fundamental rules and the sensible
processes but repeatedly upset people in the same way, your approach
is ineffective. If you are in fact right, and cultural expectations
are getting in the way of writing the encyclopedia, you've got a hard
job ahead of you changing them. But that's the trouble with vision.
====


- d.