4 ms·

>If the author had just been willing to spend half an hour learning about Wikipedia's policies instead of bitching... Half an hour? You cannot be serious?

by tnuc 15y ago

tptacek 15y ago
"It takes half an hour to challenge the community decisions of the website than in 10 years will simply be referred to as the encyclopedia? You can't be serious!" You sound like the guy Louis CK talks about, complaining about how slow his smartphone is. "Give it a second!", one wants to respond, "It's going to space!"
wpietri 15y ago
Yes, he's serious. By this point, Wikipedians have collectively spent hours on the specific article Sullivan's in an uproar about. Many of the volunteers he's addressing have spent years getting good at what they do. And they've collectively spent decades of effort figuring out how best to decide which articles are worth keeping and which aren't. And then documenting that in a fair bit of detail. If Sullivan wants to tell Wikipedians they're all stupid and wrong, the least he could do is spend enough time to understand whether he has something approaching a point.
tommorris 15y ago
Yes. In the Internet of old it was called lurking. You have to understand the community of people and their practices. It used to be considered good netiquette to spend a few days or weeks lurking in a forum before contributing. Then the user experience designers came along and said that anything that requires more than a modicum of brainpower was a "bad user experience". And everyone bends over and listens to them rather than considering the point that actually requiring people to learn the culture they are going into is a good thing.
- Flibbler 15y ago
  I hate to have to point this out but we nerds no longer have the internet to ourselves, they let the rest of the world in and for good or bad, not everyone knows the rules; that's not their problem, that's Wikipedias unless we want the community to wither and die. Wikipedia's supposed to be open to all and there's nothing that says an expert (in some obscure field we have no knowledge of) is also going to have the same understanding and experience of online communities as us. It's nothing to do with UI/UX bias and more to do with looking at the processes we currently have from the perspective of someone who isn't us and doesn't have the same knowledge/understanding we do. Wikipedia at the moment presents it's self as one thing 'an encyclopedia anyone can edit' but attempting to do so can be a daunting and labyrinthine process that does put people off. We're not practicing what we preach. TL;DR - Go easier on the N00Bs and build a better FAQ.

>If the author had just been willing to spend half an hour learning about Wikipedia's policies instead of bitching... Half an hour? You cannot be serious?

by tnuc 15y ago

>If the author had just been willing to spend half an hour learning about Wikipedia's policies instead of bitching... Half an hour? You cannot be serious?

tptacek 15y ago

"It takes half an hour to challenge the community decisions of the website than in 10 years will simply be referred to as the encyclopedia? You can't be serious!" You sound like the guy Louis CK talks about, complaining about how slow his smartphone is. "Give it a second!", one wants to respond, "It's going to space!"

wpietri 15y ago

Yes, he's serious. By this point, Wikipedians have collectively spent hours on the specific article Sullivan's in an uproar about. Many of the volunteers he's addressing have spent years getting good at what they do. And they've collectively spent decades of effort figuring out how best to decide which articles are worth keeping and which aren't. And then documenting that in a fair bit of detail. If Sullivan wants to tell Wikipedians they're all stupid and wrong, the least he could do is spend enough time to understand whether he has something approaching a point.

tommorris 15y ago

Yes. In the Internet of old it was called lurking. You have to understand the community of people and their practices. It used to be considered good netiquette to spend a few days or weeks lurking in a forum before contributing. Then the user experience designers came along and said that anything that requires more than a modicum of brainpower was a "bad user experience". And everyone bends over and listens to them rather than considering the point that actually requiring people to learn the culture they are going into is a good thing.

Flibbler 15y ago
I hate to have to point this out but we nerds no longer have the internet to ourselves, they let the rest of the world in and for good or bad, not everyone knows the rules; that's not their problem, that's Wikipedias unless we want the community to wither and die. Wikipedia's supposed to be open to all and there's nothing that says an expert (in some obscure field we have no knowledge of) is also going to have the same understanding and experience of online communities as us. It's nothing to do with UI/UX bias and more to do with looking at the processes we currently have from the perspective of someone who isn't us and doesn't have the same knowledge/understanding we do. Wikipedia at the moment presents it's self as one thing 'an encyclopedia anyone can edit' but attempting to do so can be a daunting and labyrinthine process that does put people off. We're not practicing what we preach. TL;DR - Go easier on the N00Bs and build a better FAQ.