Javaness2 wrote:
I wasn't aware that SL contributors didn't like other people wikifying their articles. I believe that I am correct in saying Charles Matthews (a wiki mammoth) stated that one of the reasons he left SL was due to its conversational nature. That is, articles tending to be a progression of signed comments on a subject, rather than the wikipedia style of an encyclopedia. While discussion is interesting to read, I think the better style is to mature such articles to the consolidated and unsigned state. Discussion can always be preserved in /discussion pages.
SL is very nice, and more people should contribute positively to it.
Mammoth or not (I'm not yet extinct, at least) I have spent the last four days at the annual Wikipedia conference, so (a) I can hardly deny the wiki part, and (b) I have only just seen this post.
It is a while ago that I finally dropped out of SL contribution. My other wiki experience would lead me to add a few caveats before going further.
Usually if those who leave go beyond "didn't suit me/didn't have the time/real life" as parting shots, they are fighting old battles. Further, the old-school wiki way says if you are not impressed, you leave quietly for (say) six months, come back, and see if matters are improved. This is the alternative to having a pitched verbal battle about issues that seem to be "of principle", and are in fact completely impacted, because they are about the functioning of an online community.
Parenthesis from the conference: the new jargon "social machine" of Nigel Shadbolt and others means a community, which will be "online" unless use of the Internet is actually barred, that does stuff, rather than, for example, just socialises. So, all of you, think of yourself in that way if you want to be trendy.
SL was and is a much better place to write about go than, for example, Wikipedia, for almost all topics. It lacked and maybe lacks some policies that Wikipedia found essential. To clarify, "verifiability" (V) and "no original research" (NOR) would not help SL so much, in my view; though Bill Spight often seemed to agitate for V. NOR would cut out much of the best of "Western go writing", the genre of go exposition in European languages that is aimed at the learning needs of Western players. (As opposed to recycling material originating in East Asia, which is the other main genre. Let's not get too generic here.)
SL worked as a "social machine" to produce "Western go writing", written collectively. The social issues were basically unknown, in that this had not been done before (its Usenet predecessor, rec.games.go, only approximated that model, and was contaminated by flame wars, and Arno and Morten saw the chance). I saw two social issues. The first is "conflict of interest". Let's not go there, but SL's history shows that this form of original sin can enter any Eden.
The other is the question of form. The dialogue is an old form, but I think too hard for go teaching of certain kinds. I remember it in some
Go World issues, a pro teaching in a club to amateurs of various levels: usually more revealing about such clubs and amateurs than anything else. Anyway, I never really agreed with Bill Spight's argument that we were documenting the "proceedings" of the SL community. This was not my understanding then of the correct use of a wiki to produce reference material, and still less now.
I would like to tweak this basic proposition just a bit: i.e. that I left because the social policy at SL was naive, which is how smaller wikis see it typically (with mixed results); and because I found Bill was blocking the master-editing on a point of principle. I have not changed my mind about reference material. I have acquired perhaps a better understanding of the distinction "reference material" v. "teaching material", since those days.
While I'm pretty busy in other directions now, partly because I have been working on teaching material, there is perhaps a thread to create on how the "social machine" aspects of the go community could best be used.
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Javaness2
