User:Sj/fun

Sharing knowledge, as all worthwhile things in life, can be fun as well as practical.

Some people feel that fun and building a good free encyclopedia are distinct; perhaps even at odds with one another. They actively chastise people for having 'irrelevant' fun or engaging in 'silliness' even if those do not both other community members -- for those activities are distracting the editors in question from more useful work.

Others, with long respect for and understanding of the open origins of wiki, as philosophy and collaboration -- and as origins of wikipedia -- have a hard time imagining the point of view described above.

Wikipedians who believe that one should edit often and enthusiastically, without distraction and without socializing, tend to make a preponderance of edits on detailed policy pages, and on specialized deletion pages. They have a significant say in how some aspects of Wikipedia policy develop. They are likely to know by acronym and number all of the CSD rules and the shorthands for recent arbcomm cases. They do not see an equidistributed cross-section of Wikipedians in most of their daily discussions; similarly most Wikipedians do not in their daily editing encounter opinions strongly held in these policy debates.

To clarify the origins of recent attacks on being sociable, I am gathering some of the rationales for banning fun on Wikipedia below.

Defenders of the faith

People to talk to about the dangers of having fun:

Messedrocker, Cyde Weys, Dev920, Doug Bell,

WizardryDragon, The Crying Orc, SCZenz, Moreschi

Tghe-retford, Doomsday349, Lawilkin, Robth, Centrx, JoeSmack,

Some arguments against having fun

"social networking" is evil

Delete everything Wikipedia is not a social networking site, what an abuse of the editing powers. Michaelas10 (Talk) 12:47, 18 November 2006 (UTC) [1]

feel-good groups such as Esperanza are evil

Burn it, salt it, and poison the coffee Seriously, this is very positive step that Esperanza members have nominated this themselves. I think you just bought Esperanza some slack, but more is expected. —Doug Bell talk•contrib 07:22, 18 November 2006 (UTC) [2]

you can socialize with friends online - on IRC or on blogs. not on Wikipedia; that's distracting

• I really don't understand the difference between spending all day on IRC, talking about unrelated topics and not editing and doing exactly the same on Wikipedia space. Seems a trifle hypocritical to me. —Celestianpower háblame 17:14, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

  IRC was created for people to have conversaton. Wikipedia was created for the purpose of making an encyclopedia. ★MESSEDROCKER★ 20:03, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

  The Coffee Lounge does seem very un-wikipedia related and perhaps it belongs on an external wiki rather than an encyclopedia. However having said that I have to agree with User:Celestianpower in that there doesn't seem to be a difference socialising on an external wiki or socialising on Wikipedia - were perhaps we can do a little good whilst chatting rather than just another IRC channel. Anthonycfc coffee lounge overhaul

any page that allows people to "edit a wiki" without being "productive" is counter to Wikipedia's goals

• The first thing we need to do is have a different name. The name Coffee lounge suggests a place of relaxation and lack of productivity, which is not what we want. The second thing we need to do is create a list of goals/purposes for the page. Here is what I can think of:
  • Help users relieve stress in an effective, efficient, and civil manner
  • Allow editors to make wikifriends that might help them collaborate on articles
  • Discuss current events, about Wikipedia or otherwise, and allow users to express their opinions
  • Suggest appropriate Wikiprojects for users who would like to get more involved in the community
  • Allow discussion of things that have an Wikipedia article, provided the discussion has some relation to the article (actually, this was Ed's idea, but I think it's a good one)

  coffee lounge overhaul, by a supporter of the lounge

• Here's my suggestion: delete the on-wiki coffee lounge and recreate it somewhere else. You guys already have the IRC channel which I think serves the same purpose, but if you're looking for something that's more wiki you could always start a Wikipedia Member's Club on Wikia or something. It just doesn't really belong here. --Cyde Weys 17:43, 16 November 2006 (UTC) cl

don't talk too much about your own stress

• The idea behind my plan is to discuss only inter-wiki ideas, so now it's serious discussion related to Wikipedia policies. It will also allow for alerts of stress, but only by third-parties, like "XXX is stressed" not "I am stressed". Doomsday349 cl

"coffee" is evil. don't encourage trivial chatting

• So, it's looking like it will be deleted and brought back in some incarnation, either here or on Wikia. I think part of the problem with the old coffee lounge was the name itself. Does anyone have a suggestion for a more appropriate name for the new one, to emphasis its encyclopedic focus? "Coffee lounge" is just waaaaay out there; there's not really any coffee on Wikipedia, either. --Cyde Weys 06:33, 18 November 2006 (UTC) cl

we can monitor people to make sure they're not having too much fun.

• Active as I am in the coffee lounge, it gets really silly sometimes. I'd hate to create policy, but it really should be more sophisticated...by that, I mean yes, no more "Dog Barking Noises". Right now, Esperanza is seen as "the fun place to hang out". That's a bad image, on Wikipedia at least. I'd like to see more of a "the place where good editors relieve stress and get help for encyclopedia building". It might seem radical, but perhaps even patrollers to monitor the coffee lounge and check for those spending too much time there and not enough editing to give a friendly warning to them. Doomsday349 WT:E

EA: fixing a charter

• (suggested) "All Esperanza programs shall be designed to either directly benefit the encyclopedia or directly assist, encourage, or support those who contribute to the encyclopedia. No programs shall exist solely for the purpose of entertainment or socializing, with the exception of off-wiki efforts such as the Esperanza IRC channel."

Festivities: a distraction (long but getting at the heart of the matter)

• I don't think we should be organizing appreciation weeks, wiki holidays, or whatever. They just take time away from the whole point of everything we do here. Writing Wikipedia is a 365-day-a-year endeavour. We can't just take a week off to pat ourselves on the back. Besides, there are already enough real holidays in real life for people who need to take a break. Wikipedia itself should never take a break, and no matter what time of year, there should always be an environment on here that emphasizes the point that we're getting work done. I fear there's too much of a move on here to turn Wikipedia into a microcosm of the real world, with games, chatrooms, separate communities, holidays, and everything. But I don't want that. I have all of that in real life. The only thing I come to Wikipedia for is the encyclopedia, and I don't really like the distraction of trying to turn Wikipedia into a mini-society when it is in fact a freely redistributable online encyclopedia, nothing more, nothing less. Don't take your eyes off the goal! --Cyde Weys 01:35, 19 November 2006 (UTC)

Some steps against fun

• Nov 14, 2006 : Esperanza itself is put up for deletion, along with subpages.
• Nov 18, 2006 : The Esperanza coffee lounge, where people talked about all things, WP or not, often including the trivia of their own lives, was [6 hours after nomination] for MfD, after a discussion about overhauling the page and in the middle of a discussion about Esperanza in general. The tone was not friendly, and not focused on coming together to find better ways to achieve the same goals; it was patronizing by critics, "we'll be better in the future, we promise" by apologists, and a totally disconnected group, not even appearing in the 6-hour window for MfD comments, were elsewhere saying "but it was fun for us, we liked it."
• mid-Nov, 2006 : Unaware of the above brewing, I update What Wikipedia is not to clarify and lighten the tone of discussions of what can go on user pages. I believe I had run into someone who was being chastised for including 'too much' pertinent and interesting information about himself, including images related to his life or work.

People who don't understand why fun is evil

Jayant412 (30 new arts, 2 minor barnstars):

• I would leave even if the Coffee Lounge was deleted.. Wikipedia used to be such a boring place until I discovered the CL.. And I am actually thinking about leaving just because the games were deleted.. When will people realize that everyone doesn't find editing encyclopedias such a interesting thing..Jayant,17 Years,India • contribs 02:34, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

  Do you realise that it is comments like that which are exactly the reason why many people wish for Esperanza to be deleted? If you don't find editing an encyclopedia to be interesting, then go and find yourself a forum somewhere where you can chat with your buddies and play games. The Crying Orc 13:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC) (from WT:E Nov 2006)

People who want more fun

Wikibooks

When Esparanza came up for MfD, some of us at Wikibooks started salivating. We're in dire need of some community-building tools and tactics... much more so than wikipedia.

I hope the project survives here, because it seems to me that a lot of people get a lot out of it. But we also hope you'll consider doing what you do on wikipedia for us!

Things you could do:

• We have no history of barnstars, but a lot of the wikibookians both deserve them and would be happy to get them.
• Dewikify! (a perverse pleasure for those who have been dutifully wikifying?)
• Have a coffee lounge. Have games on it. We could care less, but of course we'd appreciate it if you'd help clear some backlogs or give input when we need it!
• Copyedit. Most wikibooks are a "one person project", which gets pretty lonely and doesn't take advantage of the joys of wikis.
• Take a vacation. Wikistress is nearly unheard of on wikibooks. Apathy is our problem.

Really! We need you guys. This is an entire project suffering from bad morale (two projects were split off from wikibooks within the past year, and we're a bit shell-shocked). Come on down... you'll be welcomed. --SB_Johnny|talk|books 18:39, 18 November 2006 (UTC) WT:E Nov 2006