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

[Brianna Laugher]

I don't know what the prompt to write this was, but it was relevant
recently on commons.

It's a damn, damn hard thing to help people see their own cultural
assumptions, and to be constantly aware of your own.

Brianna
user:pfctdayelise

On 30/09/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 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.
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