Re: GNUstep SoftWare Index - new project home and sources of the tool

[Banlu Kemiyatorn]

On Sat, Jan 8, 2011 at 2:36 AM, Dr. H. Nikolaus Schaller
<hns@goldelico.com> wrote:
> Well, there is one thing to consider. "Drop-By" thoughts from an author who
> isn't even trying to get write access may have very low quality. If someone
> doesn't care about registration and invests some minutes to write an e-mail to
> the maintainers, I would assume that he/she also doesn't care
> for studying what is already in the Wiki, how it is structured, how
> the new content is formulated and formatted best and what all this is about.

Anonymous contributors were proven not to be that bad on Wikipedia,
weren't they? The quality of a site isn't necessary improved by
filtering but also by educating. People can learn a lot from mistakes,
the edits can still be reverted as they aren't spammers, which is the
actual issue of maintenance. It isn't not like they will keep pressing
submit for a revert war. In such case a lock and a proper discussion
would calm them down. One thing I learned from the book Greg posted
yesterday.

>
> So one could also see this policy (being intended or not) as a "quality gate"
> which I wouldn't consider a bad idea (besides that it also stops some 
> potential
> spam which is in this view just zero-quality contributions).
>
> All successful long time and large scale open source projects have
> such a separation of "them from us". It is based on trust that new members
> of the "us" group have similar goals, quality etc.
>
> If you don't believe, please try to submit a beginner's patch to Linux or 
> Debian...
> You will immediately learn that you are welcome but a member of the "them" 
> group.
> You will have to work hard to become one of the "us".
>
> So after thinking about that from a quality perspective, it is not at all
> paranoid to ban new users, but a necessary consequence of a high-quality
> attitude. And the anti-spam aspect is a windfall profit.
>
> So we still have to find more contributors to the Wiki...

Us doesn't mean that we are all equal by roles but it means we all
have our roles. People will learn that, they have freedom to submit
the patch and the maintaining party are free to tell them how to be a
part of the group. At least they can submit the patch and learn. But
we can't just let them edit and learn. Us does mean that we are all
suppose to be working together and we are not to be verified by what
our names are but what we are doing. In this case, express an opinion,
submitting the patch.

-- 
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