[WikiEN-l] Semi-solid evidence that process is in fact dangerous to Wikipedia

Mon Sep 4 19:48:55 UTC 2006

On 04/09/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:

> "Who Writes Wikipedia?" ( http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia )

> "This fact does have enormous
> policy implications. If Wikipedia is written by occasional
> contributors, then growing it requires making it easier and more
> rewarding to contribute occasionally. Instead of trying to squeeze
> more work out of those who spend their life on Wikipedia, we need to
> broaden the base of those who contribute just a little bit.
> Unfortunately, precisely because such people are only occasional
> contributors, their opinions aren't heard by the current Wikipedia
> process. They don't get involved in policy debates, they don't go to
> meetups, and they don't hang out with Jimbo Wales. And so things that
> might help them get pushed on the backburner, assuming they're even
> proposed."

This means that if we want the content to grow and be *good*, we need
to be more newbie-friendly.

This is also a BIG stick to use on Byzantine overengineered processes
and policy. Excessive process is actively newbie-hostile.

Look at Debian, bogged down in process, to the point where Richard
Stallman failed to make it in as a Debian maintainer for his own
software because of excessive process. Look how it took Ubuntu to give
it a much-needed rocket up the arse. Without Ubuntu, we'd still be
waiting on Etch. Will it take someone doing a successful fork to
decalcify Wikipedia policy?

Greg - you might want to ask Aaron for what he ran, in case you can
run better numbers across the whole database more easily.

- d.