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

Fri Jul 8 04:52:01 UTC 2005

Erik Moeller wrote:

> So, in that respect, Wikinews is quickly growing beyond the point 
> where the effect you mention is highly significant. I also think that 
> in terms of "quality content", the community has produced some 
> excellent material so far - on par with the best Wikipedia has to offer.
>
> As unfortunate as the recent conflict on en.wikinews.org is, it also 
> demonstrates that Wikinews is growing large enough to *have* such 
> conflicts. Wikipedia did have similar conflicts in the early days -- 
> big fights between LMS and Cunctator, H.J. and 24, the Spanish fork, 
> and so on. You don't know what a huge deal it was when Wikipedia got 
> its first trolls! Learning to deal with conflict is part of growing 
> up. Call it the puberty phase of the wiki. :-)
>
> The next level is that the community becomes large enough for conflict 
> to generally be accepted as a part of life, and for conflict 
> resolution mechanisms to be developed, refined, and applied regularly. 
> From the perspective of the rest of the Wikimedia community, seeing 
> Wikinews grow up may be disturbing. What has the kid done this time! 
> But please do recognize that this is a natural process, and it needs 
> to happen. While babies are cute and innocent, they can't do much 
> besides screaming, consuming food, and excreting waste products.

Disputes themselves are not surprising and part of normal development, I 
agree. In this metaphor, what I'm worried about is not the child's 
growing pains, it's the issue of who is raising the child.

Out of interest, I took a glance at the lists of administrators for some 
of these projects, because admins are often seen as role models and help 
set the tone for a project. The most administrators on any project 
outside of Wikipedia is barely over 20 (not counting meta and commons). 
Naturally, at any given time several of such a group will have dropped 
out of activity. That leaves more like 10-15 people to provide guidance. 
In this dynamic, a group of even two or three problematic admins can 
lead things seriously astray.

I hope that as more major events improve Wikinews' profile as an 
independent project, it will grow out of this stage. My comments are 
directed just as much to the other projects, and potentially apply to 
small language Wikipedias as well. Wikinews is moving more quickly 
toward maturity than some of the other projects, but its community is 
still too small to be sure it will keep going in the right direction. 
And I think that the ability to be confident in Wikinews as a community, 
more than anything else, is what would allow us to feel secure in moving 
it out of "beta".

--Michael Snow