[Foundation-l] Re: Social issues for the newer projects

Thu Jul 7 17:40:36 UTC 2005

Michael Snow a écrit:
> These are some thoughts prompted by the incident on Wikinews recently 
> discussed on this list. They are general in nature, and decidedly *not* 
> directed at any particular individual. I venture to say that anyone who 
> thinks they know what individuals I have in mind is *highly* likely to 
> be mistaken. However, I think the general principles are important to 
> consider, especially for those who are trying to shepherd the 
> development of Wikimedia's younger projects (i.e., everything but 
> Wikipedia).
> 
> Wikipedia is clearly our most successful project. It attracts the bulk 
> of our contributors and is easily the best at producing quality content. 
> In the process, it has become a solid, well-functioning community. This 
> is because it consists of people who can collaborate well, and for those 
> who cannot, the system allows people of good will to exert various 
> pressures until the problem cases either change their ways or leave. 
> These factors are self-reinforcing and thus allow for continued 
> improvement (this is not predestined, and we should avoid complacency, 
> but that is a topic for another day).
> 
> None of the other projects, in my opinion, is yet particularly 
> successful at any of these things - attracting contributors, creating 
> quality content, or developing a sustainable community. They are still 
> in earlier stages, so I'm not saying they can't, or even that they 
> should be further along than they are. And they do have fine content 
> occasionally, but need the contributor base and the community atmosphere 
> in order to bring the content to a higher level overall.
> 
> The contributor base is a huge problem, because none of the other 
> projects brings in enough new people on its own; they all grow by virtue 
> of Wikipedia's coattails. But people strongly attracted to Wikipedia are 
> more likely to stay there, so the other projects end up with those who, 
> for whatever reason, did not fit in.
> 
> Why do some people not fit in? In some cases it's due to legitimate 
> disagreements over how broadly Wikipedia should extend, so we often talk 
> about other projects as ways to accommodate content not included in an 
> encyclopedia. This is fine, and people who are less comfortable in the 
> Wikipedia community for this reason are not a problem. Let them work on 
> the project they like best, and they can team up with those people who 
> never would have even tried Wikipedia, but contribute now because they 
> really love the idea of Wiktionary or Wikinews or whichever project.
> 
> The problem is with people who don't quite fit in with our community 
> ideals. By this I don't just mean NPOV, but the need for collaboration 
> and consensus-building. This kind of person starts out on Wikipedia, and 
> would likely have stayed there if they had been successful in that 
> community. They don't leave on account of a block, nor are they even 
> obviously violating any policy. But when they grow frustrated with the 
> give and take of the process (not having their way, essentially), they 
> migrate to one of the other projects to try again.
> 
> These people, if there are too many in a project, will drag the 
> community down instead of up, and the content will ultimately suffer as 
> well. I am concerned at having observed several cases (again, no names) 
> follow this pattern. I'm not talking about people trying to push a 
> political agenda in one place and then the next - those are easier to 
> recognize and deal with. Rather, I mean people whose Wikipedia careers 
> show that they have difficulty recognizing community sentiment and 
> understanding when a consensus is developing. The problem may manifest 
> itself in a different way on the next project, but its cause remains the 
> same.
> 
> One also hopes that people can learn and do better with a fresh start in 
> a new project. Some of these users will improve and avoid their 
> Wikipedia errors, but some will not. I think it is important for those 
> trying to guide the newer projects to watch for problems of this sort, 
> and be especially diligent in fostering a community ethic on the project.
> 
> --Michael Snow

Nod. I think what you wrote here is very true.

A strong mind in a small community will have a major impact in the way 
it develops. It is one of the major risk of small projects, especially 
when the strong mind knows well the general structure and level s/he can 
use on people. This is even more problematic in small projects isolated 
for language reasons.