WikiWorld

[Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 AT comcast.net>]

on 8/31/07 2:07 PM, Milos Rancic at millosh AT gmail.com wrote:

> I am splitting this discussion into separate thread.
> 
> On 8/31/07, Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 AT comcast.net> wrote:
>> My only experience with the wiki medium is with Wikipedia; namely its Talk
>> Pages and Mailing List (Wikien-l). In them I find a great deal of 
>> hostility,
>> miscommunication, defensiveness, bullying, and a tone I can only describe 
>> as
>> mean. As a result, many persons with something important to say, but 
>> without
>> the skills to combat the noise, are being intimidated - and are not being
>> heard.
> 
> This is a complex problem and almost exclusively related to Wikipedia
> (because there are no other wikis with such diverse community; it is
> even not the characteristics of other Wikimedian projects). So, the
> major point here is that your project is recognized by Wikipedian
> communities. But, here are my thoughts about that:
> 
> - The next stage of development of Wikipedian community is to actively
> develop social responsibility for the people inside of the community.
> It is not only important to build knowledge base, but it is also
> important to build hard-conflicts-free community. In other words,
> responsibility of one mature Wikipedian is not only to make good
> articles, but to take care about new Wikipedians around her/him. This
> is the process in which your project may help in general.
> 
> - The other point is related to the rehabilitation of the people who
> were/are not able to contribute civilly on Wikipedia. Instead of
> simple blocking, they should be sent to your project (if they want to
> continue to contribute to Wikipedia).
> 
> - So, my suggestion is to try to incorporate your project inside of
> Wikimedia. If there is no project which is related to the page
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiethics (and it seems that
> there is no such project), make it on English Wikipedia. (And announce
> it on the Village Pump, of course, as well as on the en.wiki,
> wikipedia-l and foundation-l lists.) Then ask for the mailing list,
> too. And after some time try to implement into en.wiki policies that
> people blocked for more then, for example, 7 days, should go to your
> project on rehabilitation. And, of course, do some other
> organizational things like how people may become wiki-therapists and
> how their mandate may be over and so on...
> 
> Of course, when non-Wikimedia projects starts to get similar problems,
> then you may choose one of two options: (1) to move on some neutral
> place or (2) to simply say that your project is willing to take the
> responsibility for non-Wikimedia projects, too (I think that this is a
> better idea).
> 
> BTW, don't make a usual Wikimedian mistake: Make your project
> international from the beginning. Even your headquarters may be on
> English Wikipedia, community needs projects which are not
> language-based because it is not possible to find a critical mass of
> the project leaders inside of one smaller community. In other words,
> "demand" that the project should have centralized place for
> communication (i.e., maybe to move headquarters to Meta when some
> other WM project is willing to make the same project).

Thank you very much for your input, Milos. I am very passionate about this
issue.

I did not mean to focus on Wikipedia in my message; just to say that it has
been my only experience in this medium. I would like to see the core of my
idea be applied to all internet communities that involve interpersonal
communication among its members.

Thank you, again. I would also like to hear what the rest of you think about
this idea.

I look forward to some interesting discussions about this, and many other
subjects, on this List.

Marc Riddell