From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
Sent: Friday, 6 January 2006 09:24
To: English Wikipedia
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The userbox fad
On 1/5/06, Peter Mackay <peter.mackay(a)bigpond.com> wrote:
From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of jayjg
> > There are better social clubs available on the net. If
> socialising is
> > truly their main interest, then they'll go elsewhere
soon enough.
>
> There are no social clubs available on the net with the
prestige of
Wikipedia. It is a top 20 website.
Surely, using your own definition, that would mean that
there are 19
more attractive ones?
Not really, since the others don't allow people to do this
kind of thing.
Ah. So you see Wikipedia as a social club. A prestigious social club.
I don't. I see it as having a community side, but it is not as heavily
oriented towards community as many other sites. And I must question just how
prestigious a social club is if it allows anybody to walk in off the street
and join.
But I suspect that we are playing with words now.
Wikipedia needs some sort of community space and tools if editors are to
co-operate on the project. It seems to me to be working very well in that
regard.
Sure, there are a few ants at one end of the bell curve and a few
grasshoppers at the other. But we are always going to get a bell curve and
whipping up a conflict between the two extremes doesn't strike me as
particularly helpful. Instead I think it would be better to encourage the
socialites to be a bit more productive. Encourage new editors, steer them
gently on the right path and so on.
Peter (Skyring)
Peter (Skyring)