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At time of writing, five other comments in this thread link to Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is an example of a large community that has not become ruined, thro

At time of writing, five other comments in this thread link to Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is an example of a large community that has not become ruined, through social and technical counter measures. There may well be people who think that it "is not what it once was" and that's probably true for Wikipedia and for many communities, but that's different from the changes being ruinous.

chii 4y ago
> Wikipedia is an example of a large community that has not become ruined there's an awful amount of moderation in wikipedia though. With enough moderation, you can control the community. And tbh, wikipedia has two disjointed groups - the editors and the viewers. The editors are moderated heavily, but not the viewers, since they are not contributing. Therefore, even if the viewers are large, they don't contribute to the editor's community.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  It's a bit sad to see it this way. Wikis do see 'viewers' as potential editors. Naturally by way of https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/
ekanes 4y ago
I don’t think it’s splitting hairs to say that Wikipedia is a project (with community) more than a community first, and that probably helps.
bitlax 4y ago
At the page level, Wikipedia is a great example of this phenomenon. Mathematics and engineering pages are usually well-written and informative. Pages for popular political topics are routinely locked and vandalized, and the content eventually reflects the same worldview you see in forums with low barriers to entry.
- Kim_Bruning 4y ago
  That's a key insight. On an average wikipedia page (or even topic), you will only encounter a small number of participants at a time. A lot of the time you can forget that the rest of the community even exists. You're likely to be fine even if you Ignore All the Rules [1][2]. As long as you mean well, good-faith interactions between individuals (if any!) will typically set you right. This is where Wikipedia is strong. On highly popular pages, the number of participants can rise well above the actual empirical value of Dunbar's number for that page. At that point it becomes very hard to maintain order, and things can get very bureaucratic over even a single punctuation mark. This is where Wikipedia is weak. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules [2] Yes, even in 2022. O:-)

chii 4y ago

> Wikipedia is an example of a large community that has not become ruined there's an awful amount of moderation in wikipedia though. With enough moderation, you can control the community. And tbh, wikipedia has two disjointed groups - the editors and the viewers. The editors are moderated heavily, but not the viewers, since they are not contributing. Therefore, even if the viewers are large, they don't contribute to the editor's community.

Kim_Bruning 4y ago
It's a bit sad to see it this way. Wikis do see 'viewers' as potential editors. Naturally by way of https://xkcd.com/386/ https://xkcd.com/386/

ekanes 4y ago

I don’t think it’s splitting hairs to say that Wikipedia is a project (with community) more than a community first, and that probably helps.

bitlax 4y ago

At the page level, Wikipedia is a great example of this phenomenon. Mathematics and engineering pages are usually well-written and informative. Pages for popular political topics are routinely locked and vandalized, and the content eventually reflects the same worldview you see in forums with low barriers to entry.

Kim_Bruning 4y ago
That's a key insight. On an average wikipedia page (or even topic), you will only encounter a small number of participants at a time. A lot of the time you can forget that the rest of the community even exists. You're likely to be fine even if you Ignore All the Rules [1][2]. As long as you mean well, good-faith interactions between individuals (if any!) will typically set you right. This is where Wikipedia is strong. On highly popular pages, the number of participants can rise well above the actual empirical value of Dunbar's number for that page. At that point it becomes very hard to maintain order, and things can get very bureaucratic over even a single punctuation mark. This is where Wikipedia is weak. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Ignore_all_rules [2] Yes, even in 2022. O:-)