Grants talk:IdeaLab/Reforming the Community - Academic Purism

I disagree with the goal of eradicating user page customization. People's lists of contributions are interesting and making connections with other Wikipedians makes me want to contribute more. Identity is important to people and they will find a way to express it whether or not your proposals are put into work. Shiningroad (talk) 01:25, 6 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

I too disagree with all three goals. Regular users often find contribution lists to be helpful in determining whether an edit might be vandalism, or was made in good faith. If you remove all personalisation of talk pages and all edit history, you're making all editors the same. This is a nice dream, but, in reality, it's important to be able to differentiate between people. Users enjoy edit history, because they're able to look at the contributions which they and their fellow Wikipedians have made, and feel proud. There is much less incentive to contribute if you're unable to say that you've worked on anything, and there's no way to reward people (You might be new to Wikipedia; see "barnstars," which are rewards for especially good contributions on Wikipedia and other wiki-based sites) for their work. It's not like men are the only ones who like having their ideas appreciated. Wikipedia is a community, not a for-profit encyclopedia. "Re-education" does not make much sense. Polcies are already in place to promote diplomatic editing, but, there's no reason to discuss an edit if it's not controversial. If you truly are clearly right about something, it's better to edit directly, than to discuss and then edit. WP policy already states that controversial edits which tend to induce edit warring, should be discussed. Zaixionito (talk)

I profoundly disagree with the three proposed goals. One of the great ideas of Wikipedia has been allowing any and all of its contributors/users to adopt a name or username, so anyone may be able to know who created/wrote/edited/undid what. Only a fussy or uninformed or fascist individual would think the contrary... covered under a shroud of false modesty. ("The fact that we even have user pages for our login names is excessive and self-gratifying."...) I think Wikipedia has to continue its existence as a transparent, crystal-clear, shareable, visible, open, see-thru, virtual encyclopedia and a great source of data, information and knowledge ... and not a place where the ideas of quasi-Gestapo's, quasi-Stasi's or quasi-KGB's should prevail. Regarding "... which tends to lead to edit wars and some users feeling tremendously outspoken.", I think only the faint-spirited individuals feel "tremendously outspoken". I consider it is necessary for Wikipedia to go ahead with the current policies, id est, the older and expert Users, Librarians, the connoisseurs, et cetera should remain in charge, should undo what is wrong, should go on being the authorities and the referees. If Wikipedia is not a "perfect" democracy, it ought to be at least a meritocracy. Heterotrofo (talk) 07:44, 6 March 2015 (UTC)Reply
Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico.

I oppose all three goals, Userpage customization helps build community and make Wikipedia a fun place to be, plus it's human nature to want stuff like this so people would get around it. The display of contributions is needed to help people report vandals to admins who are understaffed as I understand. The third idea seems like total opposition to WP:Bold and also has the issue a lot of articles have no one actively working on them. Halfhat (talk) 11:21, 6 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

I oppose these goals, on two points. First, I do not feel that they would positively affect the gender ratio. Second, I feel that they would dramatically negatively affect participation on Wikipedia. Yes, disagreements "over trivial issues" can be a turn-off towards women. But having an identity, making edits associated with the editor, allows all people (male and female) to be invested in Wikipedia. That encourages participation, just as publishing academic papers under one's name encourages participation from scientists and researchers. It links an achievement with a person. While a more academic discussion atmosphere would likely improve the gender ratio, this proposal goes far beyond simply a discussion atmosphere. Korval (talk) 18:47, 6 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

So, basically, the way to encourage women participation is to discourage everybody from having any identity, and to turn all, men or women, into a unitary mass. Why stop here? Let us switch off all the user accounts. All the IPs are equal (although, I'm very much afraid, some will soon become more equal than other). Dumbing down is not a solution, even if one dislikes "contribution celebrities" (with all their books, sources, and knowledge)--Felis domestica (talk) 16:08, 7 March 2015 (UTC)Reply

Opposition to opposition I believe this is an excellent idea, I don't know exactly who believes that identity should be placed, in fact knowledge shouldn't have a "male/female" point of view, no one will lose their identity if isn't placed in a public site as Wikipedia (some users seem to feel probably that because of lack of estimate), is like a "man-kind achievement", Wikipedia isn't about being a "funny place" also, as some people stated; so if you want a "funny place" look elsewhere. If women participate only 20%, is because they want to participate only that 20%, they aren't forbidden to participate more, why they want to participate only 20%? Well that's not of concern of anyone, respect that, or what?, what are you going to do if they don't want to? Furthermore, extremist comments like "lets switch off all user accounts" doesn't help at all...