The State Of The Wiki

Consider this picture:

Now subtract the boat on the horizon.

That is some anonymous person's opinion of Wiki at the moment.

Who? What does this mean? Wiki looks fine to me.

Wiki just experienced a baby boom. The population expanded rapidly and the culture was unable to keep up. This culminated in the WikiMindWipe, which forced people to recognize what was happening and caused a great deal of disillusionment among the general population. This lead to a disintegration of all the cultural norms that had been established and a series of problems (see GotDeleted). Now, people are trying to pick up the bits, but in the process an entirely new culture is evolving.

For example, anonymous posts are now rejected totally. There is a sense that, if you aren't "man" enough to sign your work, then what you say isn't really all that reputable. I never sign my work, because too many people know who I am. In the past, signed posts tended to turn wiki into a PissingMatch. Refactoring has also become more aggressive, among other changes.

Eventually, this may be for the good, but right now wiki looks like that raft. There are some people proclaiming imminent salvation, a large number clinging to them, some people just sitting, desolate and some falling off the side. However, at the moment the existence of a boat is not obvious.

-A different AnonymousDonor

There are only a couple of people around who complain about anonymous posts and we haven't heard much from them lately. The only time they're much trouble is when they are used as part of ThreadMode and then it's mostly because it's hard to tell when speakers change or to follow the posts from a particular speaker. I have no personal recollection of signed posts causing a PissingMatch, but maybe I just missed it. I think things are not as bad as portrayed here -- and I also think that they are getting better. -- PhilGoodwin

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I don't know if I'm a "baby-boomer" or not -- I've been here intermittently since late 1997 -- but I am basically uncomfortable about the idea of people walking about deleting pages that they deem "inappropriate". I have always felt that this was a place where opinion was frankly and freely expressed, and that if I was disturbed by something I could either respond or ignore it. Thus, while I appreciate the quiet "housekeeping" that has always gone on, I find the more recent phenomena of wholesale "refactoring" to be little more than censorship. In particular, if somebody doesn't like a page bashing a particular company or product, than don't read it. When I'm feeling particularly frustrated by something lame and stupid, I greatly appreciate finding a community of peers who feel the same way. I therefore find it offensive for somebody to come along later and decide that such material is "inappropriate" and then delete it. Just my two cents worth. -- TomStambaugh

I agree for the most part. It's funny, I've argued vehemently for months against page deletions and now I'm about to argue for them. There comes a time when you have to FixBrokenWindows or face rampant vandalism. I do, on occasion, delete pages. They are always one liners and always have an immflammatory or obscene title. It's my little way of saying that someone here cares enough to scrape off the vandalism. It appears that I was wrong to have deleted MfcMustDie, but it's back now with no lasting harm done.

I am against both censorship and the apperance of censorship so I am careful not to delete anything that isn't trivial to put back. If I felt the need to delete anything of any particular size I'd DeleteAndArchive it so that there would be some route of access to it whether to restore it or not. I think that deletion is a useful but dangerous tool. I hope that I've found a way to use it constructively and appropriately. -- PhilGoodwin