Collaborate Radically
Larry Sanger, one of the people behind Wikipedia, observed that Wikipedia succeeds in part because of a set of factors, among them three that we endorse on this wiki:- Collaborate radically; don't sign articles. Radical collaboration, in which (in principle) anyone can edit any part of anyone else's work, is one of the great innovations of the open source software movement. On Wikipedia, radical collaboration made it possible for work to move forward on all fronts at the same time, to avoid the big bottleneck that is the individual author, and to burnish articles on popular topics to a fine luster.
- Offer unedited, unapproved content for further development. This is required if one wishes to collaborate radically. We encouraged putting up their unfinished drafts--as long as they were at least roughly correct--with the idea that they can only improve if there are others collaborating. This is a classic principle of open source software. It helped get Wikipedia started and helped keep it moving. This is why so many original drafts of Wikipedia articles were basically garbage (no offense to anyone--some of my own drafts were sometimes garbage), and also why it is surprising to the uninitiated that many articles have turned out very well indeed.
- Neutrality. A firm neutrality policy made it possible for people of widely divergent opinions to work together, without constantly fighting. It's a way to keep the peace.
The Early History of Nupedia and Wikipedia, part II, Larry Sanger
Are we really neutral here? No. Not in prose. Should be we? No. Maybe decorous is better.
CategoryWikiHandbook
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