CZ: slow growth, long-term commitment, reluctance--Is the problem the warts?

[Aleta Curry]

This is a governance issue, but I don't actually know where to put it, so I chose here.

Y'know how recurring themes are

• Reluctance of people to join CZ (Real names policy often blamed)
• People leaving/not contributing/grumbling but not doing
• CZ just isn't growing fast enough

I've been thinking about things a lot lately, thanks to some comments here and at WP.

My feeling has been that slow growth is okay, and that with respect to the other things, the BIG PROBLEM is the lack of balance between responsibility and reward. 

Well, I still feel that way, but now I'm wondering whether there isn't another component influencing these:  the very PUBLIC EXPOSURE of people's mistakes.

What the wiki forces is for every error, every typo, every thoughtless comment, every stupid mistake, every sarcasm and all one's scrap paper, to be held up for public scrutiny and recorded for all time--or until the death of the Internet, whichever comes first.

I can't think of any other facet of our lives where we let ourselves in for that.  When I write, I throw out the notes--no one--not my husband, not my editor, not my mum--gets to see my doodles.  When I took a maths test, I got to throw away the scrap paper--and in the rare instances where the prof. required it, it still wasn't made PUBLIC.

Things that are reviewed before publishing get cleaned up BEFORE they're published.  They don't get published along with the comments to fix this, that or explain the other more fully, are you sure about Q?  What's your proof for XYZ?  and alpha-beta-theta that you wrote is just MORONIC how could you have written anything so stupid you complete TWIT?!

Gareth started me thinking about this when he wrote recently that he had a thick skin, and I thought, well, yeah, but what if you *don't*?

We take our time getting ready to go out, and we arrived (we hope) in the minimum state of preparedness in which we want people to view us.  We show up smelling clean and without spinach in our teeth and in clothes that fit; no one gets to watch us washing and flossing and struggling into ahem! girth-reducing undergarments.

What we *say* is that our environment will always be professional.  I'm afraid that the very nature of that environment makes that not possible to the degree I state above, and I wonder if that isn't affecting people; some see it at the outset, some don't but nevertheless come slapping up against it at some point.

[Robert_W_King]

I still think the problems are usability related.

[Stephen Ewen]

It would be really interesting to see all of the internal communications made by Britannica as they prepare a new version for press.  You are right that such communication is internal only.

The only solvent I can think of to address these concerns is to make all talk pages non-public, a technically easy thing to do if that is the direction we want to take. 

I for one would not have a problem with such a step, at least not one that I can think of right now.  What we have done to date is bar the major search engines from indexing talk pages.

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

An interesting post, Aleta. Of course, you are right that normal publishing has an invisible process of drafting, rewriting, refereeing, rewriting, etc etc. Is the opacity of that process a good thing? I would say, No. It happens for convenience, mainly in the sense that older technologies could not permit transparent process, and to a lesser extent to conceal some of the arbitrariness which exists in much scholarship.

In the case of CZ, I think that so long as the Talk pages are moderated by the Constabulary, are intelligible in a chronological and logical sense to a first-time reader, they should actually enhance the credibility of CZ. We have the opportunity to demonstrate in public how controversial topics are debated, and some really high-quality resolutions achieved: who else does that?

Thus, for me, there are two distinct issues: are authors too self-conscious about making their arguments on Talk pages, and also limiting their authoring activities because of this. If yes, some evidence and case-studies would be useful. (2): is the issue, on the other hand, not so much about the Talk pages but about the semi-finished, work-in-progress articles themselves?

[Robert_W_King]

I hardly think that the talk pages are driving people away.

[Aleta Curry]

Once again, Martin, you understand and get to the root of the issue at once.

In answer to your third paragraph:  all of the above.  I don't think it's either/or, I think it's both, and I don't think it's the same problem to the same degree all the time, even for the same individual.  I also don't think it's just one thing--this combined with that and the other.  [Christ!  Joe and Sam are fighting again?!  Does Mary have to say that my closing sentence was crap?  I don't write 'crap'.  I thought we had the editorial issue about the Lesser Pink Sea Snail sorted--and we're now fighting about it again?!  You'd think someone would actually give my idea some thought before shooting it down.  Why is my editor being an ass?  Wait a minute--I don't get paid for this--what am I doing here again?] Sort of the way genes get complicated:  not merely dominant or recessive, but manifesting differently based on other conditions or even in combination with other genes.

One person may not have a problem with expressing their arguments publicly; another might.  Yet another might have no problem at all *accepting and dealing* with the criticisms levelled against them, but might not like everyone on the planet to have access to the criticisms, which is another thing entirely.

I also think problems can have a cumulative effect, or that people think they can handle something *until* it actually hits.

Robert, it's not just the talk pages.  And it's not just why they leave, it's why they don't join in the first place.  WP has the edge, here:  you can hide if you're chary for any reason. Further, when more than one person complains that they're leaving because of conflict or if-I'd-wanted-this-I'd-have-stayed-at-Wikipedia...well, what do you think they're complaining about, buddy?  All the nasty phone calls?!

[Robert_W_King]

Robert, it's not just the talk pages.  And it's not just why they leave, it's why they don't join in the first place.  WP has the edge, here:  you can hide if you're chary for any reason. Further, when more than one person complains that they're leaving because of conflict or if-I'd-wanted-this-I'd-have-stayed-at-Wikipedia...well, what do you think they're complaining about, buddy?  All the nasty phone calls?!

I'm not sure this is justified: that so called "edge" isn't much of an advantage--it only enables poor behavior (and indeed propagates it by allowing others to behave just as, or worse in response).  So we're hi-brow?  And we expect commitment from people?

I don't see those as negatives.

[Joe Quick]

I always appreciate your insight, Aleta.  I think you're on to something here.

There are an awful lot of stubs that I could write but haven't because I'm not confident enough in my knowledge of the subjects to put the stubs out there with my name on them.  I probably wouldn't under a pseudonym either because I worry about accidentally misleading people, but most of what I have to say is probably pretty close to right.  Others might be more likely to throw things out there and blame their mistakes on an avatar.

For obvious reasons, we don't want to nix the real-names policy, but maybe there's a way to make people more comfortable.  An optional private drafting area for each article or each author?  Just thinking out loud here.

[Matt Innis]

I am really surprised that some of my pseudonym aquaintances from wp did not move over.  When I asked, they said they weren't interested in being usurped by an editor (or something like that ;-).  Of course the real names is an issue, sometimes I wonder if they were afraid they would be outed as not being who they were telling people they were on wp.  In short, everyone is an equal on wp, but here they would have to play second fiddle (that was for Larry ;-) with very little say.  Maybe they are feeling the payoff for the work is not enough.

[Derek Harkness]

When I asked, they said they weren't interested in being usurped by an editor (or something like that ;-).

That's almost like them admitting that they know they are wrong.

Aside from talk pages, there may sometimes be criticisms left in the history descriptions. Even quite a innocent comment could be potentially discrediting. For example, I am an English teacher so every time someone picks me up on a point of grammar or spelling, it is a little embarrassing. To most other people, such points would be neither here nor there. Some history page criticism can be quite cutting. People tend to be brief so the text reads aggressively when the writer didn't mean it so.

[Denis Cavanagh]

Well none of my mates know I use citizendium. I mean they know about the site because I've told them but I don't want them to know I edit on here. Thats for a simple reason really; I don't want it getting around that I use a particular site when every acquaintance from under the sun will be able to see what I'm up to over here. I know it doesn't sound like much but it is a privacy issue...

[Richard Pettitt]

This has been on my mind recently, and I'd like to share my perspective as a non-expert. I was initially reluctant to join CZ because I was concerned about attaching my name to my work. I'm not thick-skinned, so its all too easy for me to take a criticism of my work as a criticism of me.  I was concerned that I wouldn't be able make quality contributions, and since an expert informing you of a mistake has more impact than an anonymous person saying the same thing, I was leery of my work being scrutinized and put down. Thankfully, the majority of people I've interacted with here on CZ are very gracious in explaining their edits, but people won't realize this until they've experienced it, and that only happens after joining. Despite this apprehension, working alongside experts is a rewarding experience for me, as a student. I owe my ability to sift through the literature to working on WP and CZ, and I feel my writing style has improved since joining CZ, not to mention I'm learning more in my "spare time" than from going to class. 

More to the point, I had a recent experience with my thesis supervisor that illustrates my displeasure with open talk pages. Her specialty is fMRI research on psychopathy, and not at all familiar with my topic of interest. Since I've been working on an articles here that strongly relate to my planned thesis, I thought of pointing her towards the articles on CZ so she could become more familiar with the subject, and my quality (or lack thereof :p) of work. This thought made me very uncomfortable, but not because I was concerned with what I've written on that article or its talk page. No, I didn't want her to see a conflict that occurred at a completely unrelated article's talk page. (Yes, the system worked and the constables take care of it, but all that information is still contained in the page's history. Also, she would have access to every edit I've made, and would know what time I made them... I don't want her, or anybody else, really, to know exactly what I'm doing online.)

An advantage of WP's talk page is that readers can take a look to see what material contained in the article is considered contentious. Our policy of not allowing such material to remain in the article negates that advantage. Talk pages are vital to the process of writing an article, and and so once an article is approved, are open talk pages necessary at all? In this way, I'm in favor of making talk pages non-public, and limiting the information presented in the history tab. As Derek has pointed out, edit summaries are brief and can fall prey to the same problems as talk pages. Would it be possible to retain the history, but to make all the edit summaries private? If this happens, however, it could be misinterpreted as a move away from openness, and towards a "closed door cult of experts".

This analogy came from elsewhere on this forum and I'm not taking credit for it. But it went something like "People should see the gracefully gliding swan, not the feet frantically kicking underwater." 

(Sorry this post was so long, but I've got a midterm tomorrow... and procrastination has been kicking in. )

 

[Martin Baldwin-Edwards]

The solution -- and a frequent practice -- is that the talk pages of Approved articles are zipped up, and not immediately visible. That way, you can read the discussion about how the article got into its Approved form, if you really want to make the effort. But a casual viewer would not see it. Maybe we could make that CZ policy -- zipping of Talk pages for all Approved articles.

[Aleta Curry]

I always appreciate your insight, Aleta.  I think you're on to something here....

For obvious reasons, we don't want to nix the real-names policy, but maybe there's a way to make people more comfortable. ...

Thanks, Joe.  And increasing the comfort level is of course key.

Aside from talk pages, there may sometimes be criticisms left in the history descriptions. Even quite a innocent comment could be potentially discrediting. For example, I am an English teacher so every time someone picks me up on a point of grammar or spelling, it is a little embarrassing.

Of course, that's why I'm saying it's not *just* a problem of talk pages, it's public exposure...of errors, of draft, of embarrassing mistakes, incomplete thoughts, circular reasoning, ill thought out arguments.  The lot.

Robert, when I say WP has 'an edge', I do not mean their system is superior (well obviously) I mean precisely that in this regard they have an edge.  They give people a comfort level.

It's interesting that so many of you are looking at this from the point of view of anonymity allowing people to hide objectionable behaviour.  That is of course true, but it is not the point I'm making, so hear the point I'm making.

Let me ask this:  so many CZers are...married to experts, the children of experts, the siblings of experts, the good friends of experts, the parents of experts, the cousins of experts.  Why aren't we simply overrun with members of the same family?  What is there about the discomfort we experience that makes us not want to sell it?

There's something else here, it involves the way humans react to exposure, and Den and Richard P. have mentioned it, and I don't think they're alone.

[Robert_W_King]

I can only tell you how I feel from my perspective, if it relates:

I am not ashamed, or afraid, to tell the world and people I know that I work on Citizendium.  Quite the opposite.  I'm quite proud of what we have here, even if many would write us off because of our incompleteness compared to 'that other guy'.

In fact I try to do my best to get people that I know who happen to be subject matter experts or are experts in something that they should contribute what they know.  What's the harm? 

I am not affected by a "secret shame".  I know it's going to take time to make a quality product, especially in our case.  Do I want it to happen faster?  Of course, but sometimes that's just not the way things happen.  Are there more ways to get the word out?  Sure.  Have we explored them?  Probably not.

When I tell people about CZ, up front I know people will be skeptical.  But I tell them about the process, and how it works, and even if they don't visit the site, I feel like I've informed somebody about a better growing alternative.

We may not have as many articles; we may be incomplete; we may be in draft, but so what?  Rome wasn't built in a day.  It's not like we're running a "bait-and-switch" scam.