User:Herostratus/September/usertext1
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[edit] Durin - Jan 2006
Excerpt from post on Jimbo's talk page.
I am making no exaggeration in noting there is a very large number of people who are very depressed with the state that Wikipedia is in with regards to these issues in general. You can view my talk page to see comments left by some to this effect. I have made contributions noting this problem here and [1]. Work has just begun to attempt to coalesce a number of aspects of this problem into a coherent catalyst for change [2], [3]. There is quite a bit more work that needs to be done. Very worthy editors are leaving the project with strong dissatisfaction about the current state of affairs. Few, if any, seem to care.
The stratification of editors must stop. Every one of us started with just one edit. There are no mechanisms to evaluate based on one edit whether an editor is going to be pivotal to the future of 1,000 articles or turn into a hopeless vandal. Yet, we treat new users like crap on a routine basis; their words matter less, their contributions to various debates are viewed with cynicism, and the old hands frequently view them as being subjects to their rule rather than equal participants in a grand project. I know of a new user (MikeGasser) who is a newcomer to this project. His userpage outlines his areas of expertise and knowledge background. I know him; not on a personal level but I know him. He is brilliant and very well regarded within his field. This man can (and already has begun to) make massive contributions to this project. Yet, if he were treated as poorly as some newcomers have been treated here by "old hands", he would leave and take his knowledge with him. Our newcomers are our lifeblood. We must be ever vigilant to support them, care for them, and treat them with due respect. We must be careful to fairly and equitably admonish those who work against this ethic. Yet, right now, crushing the hapless newbie seems a sport rather than a despised activity. Durin 02:49, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] (response)
There's a lot of good points here. We need to emphasize structure and process. Hundreds of admins acting independently, without a firm set of rules to guide and restrict them, along with an informal admin hierarchy (I've gotta be somewhere near the bottom)...you're left with a few users who have power that is almost unlimited. We don't have rules to follow, we have an elite group of admins to avoid irritating. That's just a basic assessment of the problem. A mature system has got to have a developed structure, has got to limit the power of individuals and invest it in collective decision-making with all the stuff that gets decided written down clearly enough that everyone is basically following the same rules, guided by the same thinking (although conflicts will always arise over particular matters of interpretation—the point is to keep it manageable and within a framework). We have a tremendous problem around here in that there's a way of thinking that prevails among the people who basically run the site (although not, as far as I have seen, among Wikipedians in general) that runs completely counter to all that—it's focused on flexibility, individual decision-making, quick and decisive action. There's a strong attachment to that theoretical mode; I couldn't tell you why exactly the attachment is so strong. But the fact is that it's an ideology that increasingly fails at the same rate as growth—this is not new, it's the same old story wherever you go. There is a correct way to develop a system administratively, a correct general way of thinking to guide it, which has been worked out in practice innumerable times—plenty enough that we shouldn't be having to fight over it any more. We need to just throw out that unworkable thinking. We've got battles breaking out all the time, and there's only going to be more, because that thinking becomes even more unworkable as we continue to grow. I'm speaking in very general terms here, but what I'm basically saying is there needs to be a focused shift away from individual decision-making, manifested in specific actions, towards collective decision-making, manifested in policy and process. Everyking 09:26, 18 January 2006 (UTC)
==Msg from User:Cormaggio Jan 2006
I think I know that "OrgDev" refers to Organis/zational Development, but what does it really mean? When you ask: "Can OrgDev be applied to a wiki environment?" - I am confused. I am interested in Wikip/media as a learning environment/system/community/organisation - sometimes these phrases overlap with the literature in (what i think is) Organisational Development (see, for example, Peter Senge at SoL). So, I would say, of course we can concern ourselves with our own development - is that what you mean? If so, it seems to be so obvious as to warrant its removal from the list. If, however, OrgDev refers to something a bit more specific and/or structured, then you need to clarify what you mean.
On userpages, again, there is a mass of literature expounding their positive, affective need-fulfilling roles, so I suppose this would be relevant. I'll be happy to answer questions or act as an information guide (hrrm..), but I'm just way too busy at the moment to have even read up on the ongoing debate (I just ignore half the threads in my inbox), or to help out with the writing of this document. Still, I'm heartened by efforts like this, I am a strong advocate/believer in Wikip/medians taking charge of and facilitating their own development/learning, and this is a good example of that. All the best with it - I hope it becomes something of use. Cormaggio @ 10:09, 12 January 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Msg from User:AlMac Jan 2006
- In the real world, outside of Wikipedia, we can see that there is such great diversity of opinion and how to cope with that, that there is always one or more wars and lesser violence raging some place.
- Number of Wikipedians is staggering. It is amazing Wikipedia does so well in coping with vandalism and different points of view.
- Consider the United Nations, a democratic committee of 200 nations, most of whom do not believe in or practice democracy at home, and populate various advocacy committees with representatives of the nations traditionally accused of the abuses they supposed to regulate against. It is amazing they accomplish as much as they do.
- The US Congress, supposed to do a lot of oversight, but they find out about problems from the news media, more than from GAO investigations, and still have not yet begun to implement the 9/11 commission requested repairs to their own body. Governments seem to add more agencies, and policies and regulations for those agencies to manage, faster than any streamlining gets implemented.
- Wikipedia needs to avoid falling into the traps illustrated by real world organizations that have a growing number of people dealing with a growing number of challenges.
- There is a science to organization of groups of people, in which optimal solutions vary with the numbers of people.
- I have participated in hobby convention organization & know full well that the techniques used by a committee of under a dozen volunteers for a convention with at most 100 attendees just won't work on a convention that has hundreds of volunteers and tens of thousands of attendees. The leadership needs to be attuned to what works for various sizes of numbers of team members, and what the threshhold is when some methods are no longer applicable. This is one of the reasons I posted several places that people in certain debates needed to be reading The Mythical Man Month, and there may be other relevant educational material to help with appropriate insight.
- The types of hobby conventions I have been involved in, outside just attending as a paid customer, have included: Games conventions, Science Fiction conventions, computer user conventions. I have participated in every role imaginable in games conventions up to an including co-chairman. My experience in other kinds of hobby activities are much less. I have also moderated games that have hundreds of players, and engaged in play testing. As a programmer, I also engage in the testing of new software. Both of these have in common the notion that our first ideas how best something should be designed, may not in fact be the best ideas, so we try them out on a small scale, before imposing them on the larger community. Often tests lead to a need to redesign our ideas, and more testing, before we are satisfied with the results.
- Outside of this hobby organization exposure, and personal career in software development, where, like with Wikipedia, we learn how to do a better job through the subjective introspection of our performance to date, I have no formal training or credentials in OrgDev. I have tried to help out in several Wikipedia Projects, but for the most part my contributions to them have been in the form of suggestions, or following along to help out something that someone else started.
- I have participated in hobby convention organization & know full well that the techniques used by a committee of under a dozen volunteers for a convention with at most 100 attendees just won't work on a convention that has hundreds of volunteers and tens of thousands of attendees. The leadership needs to be attuned to what works for various sizes of numbers of team members, and what the threshhold is when some methods are no longer applicable. This is one of the reasons I posted several places that people in certain debates needed to be reading The Mythical Man Month, and there may be other relevant educational material to help with appropriate insight.
User:AlMac|(talk) 03:46, 12 January 2006 (UTC)