Community

Is wikipedia really a community? Why or why not? State your views here:

No! We're a family! Like The Tallini Family. But with more beards! -- Tarquin

Some say wikipedia is not a community because it doesn't share body risk. And from a first glance, it might be true, first because there might be a lot of pseudonyms writing compared to real people writing, second because sometimes only ip are writing, so can't be considered real persons. Proof is they are not considered real people, they are not included in that "voting system". It is unlikely a community could be built on virtual people maybe.

Before I thought a community could be built because people were sharing a vision, some ideals (building a free encyclopedia together). But though I share things with my wikipedian fellows, though I (sometimes) appreciate them much, it is not a community. A community goes beyond the simple sharing of a simplified vision. Maybe is that more a moral issue then. And clearly, many among us don't share some values I consider essential to my well-being and peace of mind. Or�likely, quite a bunch of us could share it, if we took time to think about it.

Tarquin is quite right here. From my own definition, it is more a family than a community. We don't choose a family, we belong to it.

Still, I am bothered by this notion that wikipedians can't constitute a community on behalf they do not share body risks. If we only consider those wikipedian who are humans, with a real body, we are all part of at least one community, the human community; and right now, we all more or less are sharing the risk of being hurt or killed, by war, by aids, or by an asthma attac due to a poor atmospheric quality, in short, simply because we are causing pain to the place we all live in, thus to all species, thus to us.

In biology, a community is a group of species living together, strongly inter-related. Ie, mostly benefits, but also, some disadvantages for some of the species, as long as the whole community benefit from it and is in a stable equilibrium. It is not about risk first, it is about equilibrium, each species regulating itself thanks to and through the others. Untip it, and the whole community breaks up. And the most diverse the community, the more stable it is.

Maybe is it a semantic question, and we don't all have the same definition of what a community is ?

Can the Wikipedia community become a Wikimedia community?

See also

• The Wikipedia Community
• False community