Re: [WikiEN-l] *shakes head*

What's the alternative -- start banning people indiscriminantly who act anti-social? I can tell you, if you think people are hostile now... If you're getting sick of it, take a break for a week. Stop reading the mailing list. Keep out of VFD. Etc. Because in a collective project of this sort -- one which doesn't have the "entrance fee" that a collective programming project does -- you're going to get nutzos out the wazoo. There's no other way around it. Better be ready for it. Better find ways to cope. Either that, or leave in a huff. Whatever gets you through the day. I don't think any of us are being paid for this -- we're here by choice. So exercise it if you must. You'd be missed for a week or two and then you'd be like all of the other Missing Wikipedians. This is not a project about individual people or personalities, it is about collective effort. We all do our part, and we're all replaceable. Even Jimbo. That's why it is such an interesting and provocative idea. I tell academics about this project -- academia being pretty much an antithesis in many ways -- and they say (actual quote here), "That sounds insane." They're right. That's why it's a good idea. But be realistic about it. The more popular Wikipedia becomes, the more newspaper and magazines it is covered in, the more it becomes a big lightbulb in the forest drawing all sorts of bugs to it. Some of them are good contributors. Some of them are not. There's no quick and fair way to distinguish between the two, and dispensing admin justice left and right is just going to end up with MORE people camping around trying to disrupt things, not less. There's a "Chinese proverb" I read somewhere which goes: "All people are brothers. So expect trouble." FF On 6/21/05, Rebecca <misfitgirl(a)gmail.com> wrote: