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The focus is changing, 2011: “It’s about diversifying the community. At the moment we’re really male, geek orientated, which is great, but there are lots of ed

by owyn 16y ago

The focus is changing, 2011: “It’s about diversifying the community. At the moment we’re really male, geek orientated, which is great, but there are lots of editors that we don’t get who are geeks, but not tech geeks. So they may be real experts in, say, ancient Chinese poetry but if they go to try to edit Wikipedia, then they find it too intimidating and we lose them and that’s just silly." I think this whole explosion of whatever-it-is-itis is a perfect example of that.

carussell 16y ago
I'm trying to figure out what that quote has to do with anything brought up in this thread.
- msg 16y ago
  It is about whether minority viewpoints get a fair shake on Wikipedia. As it turns out, no. And it turns out minority means "outside the male, machismo-dominated world of the alpha techno-geek." It also turns out that even esoteric technogeekery is outside the tiny circle. And it only takes one alphageek to make it so. This is an organizational problem with Wikipedia, not just an isolated incident.
  - owyn 16y ago
    Oh yeah, that's a great point!
- owyn 16y ago
  Hm? It was just a counterpoint to your quote. I'm just saying, wikipedia most likely can't and probably shouldn't contain an article about everything. It's just not possible, nor desirable, although it makes a good quote. It seems like deleting useless crap is one approach to that, and encouraging editors to contribute more to non-nerd-lore topics is another approach.
  - carussell 16y ago
    It was just a counterpoint to your quote In what way? encouraging editors to contribute more to non-nerd-lore topics Surprise! Deleting Star Wars articles doesn't create more content for the article about the large-tailed antshrike. And guess what? I don't even like Star Wars, and I think the lack of information on, you know, real stuff (in contrast to "nerd-lore topics") is disheartening. So lay off with the kind of presumptions you're throwing around in these comments.
    - owyn 16y ago
      I realize deleting one thing does not create a different thing. I agree it was more of a tangential quote and not a direct counter, but I was trying to point out that some of this "deletionism" is probably due to a recognition that not everything is being covered equally, and it might be nice to prune the leaves from time to time to encourage growth in new directions. Or something like that. Also, I'm not trying to speak for anyone else but myself, everything I said was just my own musing about the topic. However, I do have a feeling that if the first 10 years of wikipedia was represented by your quote, the next 10 years might be represented by mine. The goal seems to be growing up and encouraging people, which seems like a good idea, considering all the rage generated by this topic. If it can't contain everything then what it does NOT contain is going to be a deliberate choice by the community, and this whole thread seems to be dominated by one side of the argument so I thought I'd throw in a tangent. Thanks for the thoughtful comments though, and I should probably have put more thought into my own comments, I was just commenting in the spur of the moment.
      - carussell 16y ago
        I do have a feeling that if the first 10 years of wikipedia was represented by your quote, the next 10 years might be represented by mine. My quote was all-encompassing. The attitude in it eclipses the attitude in your quote.
        owyn 16y ago
        You have won the internets today sir. It's true, my attitude has been truly eclipsed today, and my quote crushed. Let me present the spoils of battle to the victor... I will immediately start writing a program that will recursively search wikipedia, perform a google search and then feed those results BACK into wikipedia automatically. Then it will surely be all-encompassing, no? Even better, version 2.0 will automatically categorize that knowledge and as a side effect I will have created Artificial Intelligence. No thanks necessary! And I hereby swear to never again think that an encyclopedia written and maintained by humans should have a breadth of topics organized at a scale that makes sense to other humans, that's deletionist wrongthought! (I do apologize for the sarcasm, but seriously not really)

by owyn 16y ago

carussell 16y ago

I'm trying to figure out what that quote has to do with anything brought up in this thread.

msg 16y ago
It is about whether minority viewpoints get a fair shake on Wikipedia. As it turns out, no. And it turns out minority means "outside the male, machismo-dominated world of the alpha techno-geek." It also turns out that even esoteric technogeekery is outside the tiny circle. And it only takes one alphageek to make it so. This is an organizational problem with Wikipedia, not just an isolated incident.
- owyn 16y ago
  Oh yeah, that's a great point!
owyn 16y ago
Hm? It was just a counterpoint to your quote. I'm just saying, wikipedia most likely can't and probably shouldn't contain an article about everything. It's just not possible, nor desirable, although it makes a good quote. It seems like deleting useless crap is one approach to that, and encouraging editors to contribute more to non-nerd-lore topics is another approach.
- carussell 16y ago
  It was just a counterpoint to your quote In what way? encouraging editors to contribute more to non-nerd-lore topics Surprise! Deleting Star Wars articles doesn't create more content for the article about the large-tailed antshrike. And guess what? I don't even like Star Wars, and I think the lack of information on, you know, real stuff (in contrast to "nerd-lore topics") is disheartening. So lay off with the kind of presumptions you're throwing around in these comments.
  - owyn 16y ago
    I realize deleting one thing does not create a different thing. I agree it was more of a tangential quote and not a direct counter, but I was trying to point out that some of this "deletionism" is probably due to a recognition that not everything is being covered equally, and it might be nice to prune the leaves from time to time to encourage growth in new directions. Or something like that. Also, I'm not trying to speak for anyone else but myself, everything I said was just my own musing about the topic. However, I do have a feeling that if the first 10 years of wikipedia was represented by your quote, the next 10 years might be represented by mine. The goal seems to be growing up and encouraging people, which seems like a good idea, considering all the rage generated by this topic. If it can't contain everything then what it does NOT contain is going to be a deliberate choice by the community, and this whole thread seems to be dominated by one side of the argument so I thought I'd throw in a tangent. Thanks for the thoughtful comments though, and I should probably have put more thought into my own comments, I was just commenting in the spur of the moment.
    - carussell 16y ago
      I do have a feeling that if the first 10 years of wikipedia was represented by your quote, the next 10 years might be represented by mine. My quote was all-encompassing. The attitude in it eclipses the attitude in your quote.
      - owyn 16y ago
        You have won the internets today sir. It's true, my attitude has been truly eclipsed today, and my quote crushed. Let me present the spoils of battle to the victor... I will immediately start writing a program that will recursively search wikipedia, perform a google search and then feed those results BACK into wikipedia automatically. Then it will surely be all-encompassing, no? Even better, version 2.0 will automatically categorize that knowledge and as a side effect I will have created Artificial Intelligence. No thanks necessary! And I hereby swear to never again think that an encyclopedia written and maintained by humans should have a breadth of topics organized at a scale that makes sense to other humans, that's deletionist wrongthought! (I do apologize for the sarcasm, but seriously not really)