User:SPage (WMF)/Communitay

From Michael T. Richter's Why I no longer contribute to StackOverflow Here is the recipe that all such "community-driven" approaches almost, but not quite, invariably follow:

This happened at Wikipedia...
 * 1) A wide-open community based on "merit" is built.
 * 2) The community gets a kernel of users who build up "merit" by virtue of, basically, being obsessive twerps.
 * 3) As this kernel of "serious" users builds up its influence, they start to modify what the standards of the community are to match their own desires.
 * 4) These standards get enforced on other members of the community who lack sufficient "merit" (read: who have a life outside the site) to fight back.
 * 5) The tenor of the community changes to match the notions of the obsessive, but "meritous" minority.
 * 6) Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.

With a little more more context: Poor community

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 Petty children

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Creeping authoritarianism

... That kind of behaviour is, of course, inevitable in any kind of Innarwebs™® interaction. Pseudo-anonymity makes doorknobs of otherwise-normal people. There is something else, however, in the whole Stack Exchange hierarchy that bugs me: the creeping authoritarianism.

The "flavour" of StackOverflow today is entirely different than the flavour it had when I started. When I started the community as a whole still had a bit of a sense of humour. Sure sometimes questions and/or answers would be a bit off-topic or a bit irreverent, but it gave more of a community feel that way, even if it was on occasion less-than-"professional".

This changed slowly but surely in the way that all "community moderated" things change. Here is the recipe that all such "community-driven" approaches almost, but not quite, invariably follow:

This happened at Wikipedia and it's happened at StackOverflow.
 * 1) A wide-open community based on "merit" is built.
 * 2) The community gets a kernel of users who build up "merit" by virtue of, basically, being obsessive twerps.
 * 3) As this kernel of "serious" users builds up its influence, they start to modify what the standards of the community are to match their own desires.
 * 4) These standards get enforced on other members of the community who lack sufficient "merit" (read: who have a life outside the site) to fight back.
 * 5) The tenor of the community changes to match the notions of the obsessive, but "meritous" minority.
 * 6) Lather.  Rinse.  Repeat.