[p2p-research] wiki controversy ..

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear friends,

I may have appeared rather harsh and too emotional in my previous exchange
with Alex, and Alex is probably wisely refraining from putting more oil in
the water at the time when I'm clearly 'excited' ..

still, I want to explain my perspective on why this is happening,

First, I hope you understand that when a person works a number of years on a
project, at substantial cost in terms of personal and family security, you
do get emotionally involved in your project, even if you formulate and
construct it as a commons; like Marcin, who clearly overreacted last year
and had mistakenly accused some people, I may also overreact at times ..

I say may, and perhaps indeed in the form I have been too harsh, but in any
case, here are two reasons, and perhaps a third personal one:

- first, I really considered this as the gravest existential threat to the
continued existence of the wiki as I had envisaged it ..

- second, the kind of responses I got, mostly offlist, but also on the list,
made me fear that my concerns got no hearing

- third, this is the personal aspect, there is a personal dialectic going on
when a alpha male type, who is mostly undisturbed and sometimes thrives on
conflict, is faced with a conflict-intolerant person like me. I'm  not proud
of this, this is a personality quirk, but I don't thrive on conflict,
frequently somatize on it, and hence generally avoid this mode, BUT, this is
the problem, when I face a real threat, and feel my own weakness in
conducting a conflict, then I have to overreact to protect what I see as
essential boundaries. So, while generally a mellow person, seen by my
environment as tolerant and taking things in stride, I got to really
mobilize my defensive energies in specific circumstances. Always comes with
a price tag though .. last thursday, upset with the conflict, I must have
paid insufficient attention to the 'embodiedness' required for jogging and
the result is I can hardly walk for the last five days, as I have a very
painful strained muscle ... just to show you I do not thrive or conflict,

so, to return to the conflict at hand,

first, let me say I deeply appreciate the many ways in which Alex has
improving the wiki. This does not mean that I find everything he does
positive or unproblematic, but generally speaking I do not want to police
other people's contributions.

secondly however, it is very important to me that the legacy logic of the
wiki is respected, representing four years of hard work, and thought out
organisation ...

the superficial problem is a proliferation of redirects and new categories
and subcategories, most of which will stay empty and confuse people, some of
which like the redirects which will impede people to contribute on
individual pages

the more deeper problem is that the new layer can only be a improvement of
the older wiki, but not a replacement or a hostile takeover that imposes a
new and alien logic on what was done before,

and as I said, the personal problem when my concerns are answered back in
authoritarian ways, basically saying "f off, it's my way or the highway and
I will restore any of your edits"

So this is basically it,

Michel

-- 
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