Fred Bauder wrote: >> 'Forget altruism. Misanthropy and egotism are the fuel of online social >> production. That's the conclusion suggested by a new study of the >> character >> traits of the contributors to Wikipedia. A team of Israeli research >> psychologists gave personality tests to 69 Wikipedians and 70 >> non-Wikipedians. They discovered that, as New Scientist puts >> it<http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16349-psychologist-finds-wikipedians-grumpy-and-closedminded.html>, >> Wikipedians are generally "grumpy," "disagreeable," and "closed to new >> ideas."' >> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2009/06/the_sour_wikipe.php >> >> I wonder how the mailing list will react.... >> > Always knew this, Wikipedia is generally an outlet for folks who have low > interpersonal social skills, or at least insufficient outlets for self > expression. As to "Disagreeable and closed to new ideas", that is policy, > Wikipedia is a compendium of established knowledge, not a place for new > ideas, which we call original research. The flaw in the latter part of your comments is that I don't believe that they were talking about content. Had it been about content you would certainly be right. Biting newbies, aggressive insistence on established procedures and guidelines across a wide range of article types, or general impatience are all part of the more disagreeable qualities to be found. As a community grows in size and self-importance it becomes easier to ignore new ideas by reacting to them with silence. By quietly disposing of new ideas the community's immune system is at its bacteriophagic best; it is just not smart enough to distinguish between cancers and cures.
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