Re:StackOverflow unwinding?
by wpietri on Tuesday June 19, 2012 @11:26AM
(#4132296)
That you don't know what community means is kind of sad, but it certainly explains the decisions that drove me (and others here) away from Stack Overflow.
Speaking as a Wikipedia admin, you're replicating a mistake that I think has harmed Wikipedia immensely without mirroring one of the key safety valves.
Wikipedia has a problem that's well-known in the community: active participants are burning out, editor activity is stagnant, and the existing social environment is very off-putting to newbies. Petty enforcement of petty rules, an obsession with particular notions of quality, and a lot of behavior that seems to the uninitiated like high-handed dickishness.
But one of Wikipedia's saving graces is this core policy: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." It reminds people that rules are the tail, not the dog.
With Wikipedia, strict rules aren't what leads to a valuable artifact. it's that a lot of people care about creating the world's best reference work together. They understand very clearly that it's the community that produces the encyclopedia. The rules are just there to record community consensus, and to help newbies think things through.
Speaking as a Wikipedia admin, you're replicating a mistake that I think has harmed Wikipedia immensely without mirroring one of the key safety valves.
Wikipedia has a problem that's well-known in the community: active participants are burning out, editor activity is stagnant, and the existing social environment is very off-putting to newbies. Petty enforcement of petty rules, an obsession with particular notions of quality, and a lot of behavior that seems to the uninitiated like high-handed dickishness.
But one of Wikipedia's saving graces is this core policy: "If a rule prevents you from improving or maintaining Wikipedia, ignore it." It reminds people that rules are the tail, not the dog.
With Wikipedia, strict rules aren't what leads to a valuable artifact. it's that a lot of people care about creating the world's best reference work together. They understand very clearly that it's the community that produces the encyclopedia. The rules are just there to record community consensus, and to help newbies think things through.