Talk:Group 4 Dispute Results

Non-Class Members

I'm not sure our group discussion page is the best place for random Wikipedians to be using as their platforms. For now, I'll me moving the attempts at helpfulness here to the talk page, and deleting those just looking for yet another soapbox. If someone sees fit to remove them entirely, or to a seperate wiki page, feel free.-Lciaccio 09:02, 9 January 2008 (EST)

• Comment from a completely non-involved Wikipedian. This is, after all, a free-to-edit Wiki ;). Please feel free to completely disregard anything I say - I speak entirely for myself, and don't necessarily represent the views of the entire Wikipedia community. I've read the whole fiasco on ANI, as well as the sockpuppetry case, and this page, but as of yet I haven't commented on the whole situation anywhere. I really wanted to get back to this group as a whole, and felt that leaving a message here may be the best route. Firstly, I have to disagree with a number of users on Wikipedia: I don't think that this was a case of sockpuppetry, or meatpuppetry. However, I agree with them that it certainly looked like that, without all the facts. This is why I do think that it would have been beneficial for you to disclose your position immediatley. Also, as you rightly point out above, picking an article where tensions were already at breaking-point perhaps wasn't the wisest decision, but in all fairness, short of spending a few weeks looking at the disputes beforehand, I honestly don't see how you could have realised this fact before jumping in, and so I feel that this was nothing more than an unfortunate but unavoidable mistake. Finally, in response to this comment from Lciaccio: "I failed to see what a sense of community thrived on these boards, and how great the disdain for those percieved to be outsiders". You kinda got that both right and wrong. Yes, the core Wikipedia community is certainly tight-knit, and, very unfortunatly, there are some occassions when outsiders are not welcomed as they should be. However, I don't really feel that this is the case here. I think Jehochman got it bang-on when he posted this on the ANI: "These are students. We hope they have learned something—that online communities do not like being experimented upon". It's really not so much that you, a bunch of outsiders, jumped in and were rejected by the community, but more that when people learnt of your project, (especially when links to this page were posted), they felt uncomfortable, uneasy about being part of essentially an experiment without their consent. I know that, especially having read through this page, I sorta feel "Hmm, here I am participating in Wikipedia for enjoyment, but I could quite easily be being watched, analysed or even used in an experiment without my knowledge". That's certainly not entirely you or your lecturer's fault - anyone can do it - I suppose that this wiki page that I'm editing right now just highlighted the fact so plainly. I do, however, feel that it would have been courteous for you to be as transparent about the project as possible from the outset. In conclusion, yes, you could certainly have handled the situation better in some ways, but no, it's really nowhere near as bad as some users are making out. As far as I can tell, none of you have been blocked from Wikipedia, so I sincerely hope that we haven't lost you as editors - being from Harvard, I should think you'd be a greater asset to the project than Joe Bloggs off the street ;). I really hope that I haven't intruded here - as it's a free-to-edit Wiki, I don't think I have, but feel free to ignore me completely ;). Finally, just to reitterate, the above represents entirely my own views, and not that of the entire Wikipedia community (though I'd hope that a fair few would agree with me :P). Regards, Islander 06:08, 9 January 2008 (EST)