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Re:Wikipedia is up (2001) by colechristensen on Sunday May 09, 2021 @01:03PM (#27097620)
You essentially can't get that big, survive that long, or be so relevant without deserving criticism. Until people are angels, large complex efforts that survive necessarily need to be kind of shitty in one way or another. Linux (and Linus) are in the same boat. The ways that they are shitty have maintained (and are necessary for) the ways that they are great.

People argue the opposite, that things could be better, that the criticisms could be addressed and everything else would continue on, but I'm not so sure. Where is the large, successful organization -- based on money or not -- which has survived into greatness without these kinds of criticisms?

It reminds me of Marxism/Communisms/various utopian ideas. People have big ideas about how things can be "perfect" and all problems can be abolished. Except for a very few, very small exception, when those ideas have been tried, the outcome has been far worse than the problems that were trying to be avoided.

Re:Wikipedia is up (2001) by Kim_Bruning on Monday May 10, 2021 @07:33AM (#27104788)
It's one of the huge challenges to mankind, and an underappreciated field of research. If we better understand how to organize ourselves, we can slowly make less shitty systems over time.

That, and before you can make a system work, however shitty it is, you really need to make sure everyone knows how to use it. (hence it's important to educate or on-board people. One of the things en.wikipedia is bad at. )

Re:Wikipedia is up (2001) by colechristensen on Monday May 10, 2021 @08:09PM (#27112569)
"There should be a science of discontent. People need hard times and oppression to develop psychic muscles."

Ok maybe a bit off topic, but what I'm getting at is... well I think that a bit of unpleasantness is simply necessary and unavoidable. How, where, and the correct amount are important, but people seem to be overly outraged over every bit of negativity these days.

Human misery has a tendency to adjust itself to whatever circumstances a person finds themselves in which is why you find people in profound poverty imagining if they just had this they would be happy forever and then you go and look at people who actually have it and find that they are just as likely to be completely miserable.

I think shittiness is necessary in places because without it you'll have some people making really bad choices just to make folks happy and others who no matter what will find something to be miserable about.

So it's not about eliminating all the rough spots, but instead intentionally shaping them to be in the right places at the right intensities.