User:Rablari Dash

I've been reading Wikipedia articles for a while, and resisted the urges to sign up for an account and edit articles with steadily waning strength, until I finally snapped and joined up. I don't expect to do a lot of editing, because I don't have the time, but these are the articles I'm currently looking at giving some attention:

Mainly video game pages, because that's where I feel I have the most to contribute that isn't already there. I do, however, read just about anything on anything, and try to take the time to add to or make corrections on pages where I do have sufficient knowledge to do so. Grammar and spelling are big points with me, so a lot of my edits may revolve around simply cleaning up poor English.

Due to a lifelong hobby of reading, I'm rather well-acquainted with the English language. I'm also studying the Japanese language, and Japan in general, so I may have something to contribute to articles related to those topics.

Useful pages:

Userbox issue

If I ever get around to it, and find the place to do it, I've got a bit to say about the whole recent Userbox issue. If it doesn't all blow over first. I'll be putting together resources for my points here. This section is going to be pretty random while I organize my thoughts. Maybe I should make a subpage for it, but I really don't have anything else here, so it's hardly overloading the page.

The Wikipedia is built on several (possibly conflicting) concepts. Users are identifiable, whether by Username or IP address. This allows for accountability. It also allows for vanity, and I think that whether or not this is part of the Wikipedia is central to the Userbox discussion. What motivates people to work on the Wikipedia?

Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages - The Wikipedia has two faces. The first faces outwards, and is the one seen by a casual browser: articlespace. It should contain a NPOV, and the article's author should not be identifiable. The focus is on the information, not the author. The other face is the the inside, the technical details that make the wikipedia work, and the framework authors use to maintain this great project. Userspace, talkspace, wikispace, etc, lie on this side of the line. Here, we need to know each other, know who did what and why. We need to be able to communicate, work out our differences, and come to consensus. But should all this be obvious to everyone who visits the Wikipedia? We separate pages into different space so that people only see the face they want to see. If they want just the encyclopedia, the look at articlespace. If they want the WikiDrama, they can go looking for it.

Users do not own articles. This is central to the Wikipedia, that each article is a collaboration, rather than the individual work of one author.

Arguments for 2channel style - Difference between discussion boards and the Wikipedia Vandals on a discussion forum are motivated to disrupt discussion, or harm the reputation of other users.

Vandals on the Wikipedia are typically motivated because of the high-profile nature of the Wikipedia, and wish to use it for their own purposes. Or, they simply wish to be disruptive.

2channel#Anonymous_posting - Enables users to post anything without fear of retribution. An idea is accepted or rejected completely with regards to its virtue, rather than in terms of who proposed it. However, there's another important interpretation: An idea is accepted or rejected based on majority rule. The Wikipedia is not a democracy. Our goal is to write articles with a neutral point of view, not just the most popular view.

In general, posts on a message board do no affect the world outside of a message board - even posts on the biggest forum in the world - 2channel. They are their own little world. Sometimes they make it into the news, but overall, nothing important (and I use the word loosely) happens there. I would relate this to the transient nature of forums. Things come and go, they scroll off the bottom and disappear. They cease to matter. The Wikipedia, while subject to change and updates, is not transient. We keep track of changes to all articles.

A 2channel style version of the wikipedia would have no reason to maintain edit history. It would simply have pages that anyone could edit directly, and only the most popular view would survive as people would constantly revert the page until all but one group gave up. Or, with our wonderful technology, people would just automate the reversion process, and the only result would be a page with no predictable content, and incredible server load.

There is value in the Wikipedia. There is value in content being on the Wikipedia, because it is used as a reference and a resource by a lot of people. Controlling that resource would be a motivation for vandals that does not exist on forums. Forums are generally not a resource. They are for discussion.

Why do non-vandals edit the Wikipedia? Altruism, to be sure. Or this page. Or here. For some people, good contributors and vandals alike, it's their devotion to the topic. They care a lot about a subject. Generally, vandals care about a specific point of view, enough so that they will vandalize pages in order to promote that view. And they often think they're doing a good thing, and that doing the right thing is more important than being polite, or following the law. Some people care about the neutrality of an article, and those are some of the best contributors.

I think a lot of people wouldn't bother editing the Wikipedia at all if there were no usernames, and no identity. I resisted editing until I created a username, so that I could track my own edits, and have a record of accomplishments. This is the transience issue again.

Individuality and NPOV articles are at odds. Individuality is at odds with what the Wikipedia purports to be, and yet if we removed identity, I think we would lose a lot of good contributors.

Reasons people contribute, in no particular order:

Passionate about a subject
Altruism
Desire for recognition