Wikipedia:Wikipedia Editors Kindness Project

The Wikipedia Editors Kindness Project is a project designed to both assist in improving the welcoming of potential new editors, and to also help further an atmosphere of mutual respect and understanding amongst more "established" Wikipedia editors.

The Gutenburg press and Wikipedia

It could be argued that the Wikipedia online encyclopedia project is a monumental achievement for the human race, which may be comparable to, or possibly even surpassing the accomplishment of the Gutenberg press itself. The Gutenberg press once reduced the length of time for the uniform, "usually reliable," and "hopefully uncensored" transmission of ideas, being published and distributed to perhaps a few thousand people, the distribution time going down from several years, to mere days.

Wikipedia has now reduced this length of time down from days, to mere milli-seconds. Meanwhile Wikipedia, working in conjunction with the Internet, has expanded the number of people who have such instant access to its information, well up to the several millions. Yes, television and radio did accomplish some of this, but they were still far more prone to censorship, and usually far slower to produce.

Both the Gutenburg press, and Wikipedia were the happy results of time, place, and circumstances, working together to fulfill a need that many had long known to have existed, but who's time had only just then, finally come.

Wikipedia: A "minor miracle?"

Still, even with Wikipedia's wild success, many questions remain unresolved regarding Wikipedia. The Wikipedia editorial atmosphere is described by many as sometimes overly-harsh, mysterious, and in some important ways, lacking in true transparency. Slowly, paid editors seem to be taking over many of the articles, and nobody seems to know exactly what can be done about it. Will Wikipedia eventually become some sort of a quasi-advertising agency, and just one more source of "fake news?"

The fact that so many Wikipedia editors of good faith, led by a very altruistic and dedicated Jimmy Wales, have all managed to keep the entire organization afloat for the last 16 years would seem to be nothing short of a minor miracle!

Wikipedia's future?

This "Wikipedia Editors Kindness Project" is designed to hopefully assist in assuring the continued goodwill of all involved, by attempting to place a greater focus on the early ideals of Wikipedia.

Twelve Angry Men

Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, on more than one occasion, has described the ideal of the interactions between Wikipedia editors (when they work together best), ought to be similar to the interactions that took place between the 12 jurors in a fictional murder trial, in the movie, "12 Angry Men." In that movie 12 men, each with their own ideas about the "truth," came together, tasked with the job of having to agree amongst themselves, what was the truth and what was not.

Anyone who might watch that movie, could not deny that those 12 men were not exactly in the happiest of places, all of the characters most probably being quite glad when the whole thing was finally over!

The hero of the movie, played by Henry Fonda (juror #7), might therefore be the one example that perhaps we might best learn by. In the movie, Fonda started as the one lone dissenting voice in the jury, the only one voting "innocent." Ultimately Fonda's character ended up persuading all of the other 11 jurors to change their votes from guilty to innocent.

Three questions

This Project was designed with the hope of doing something, anything, to try to improve the editorial environment at Wikipedia. As a first hopefully humble attempt at this admittedly rather lofty aim, three questions are asked about this movie, and it is hoped that through mutual discussion, on the Talk Page of this Project, that an agreement on the following three questions might eventually be arrived at:

1. Did the character of juror #7 (Fonda) have any particular personal quality which could be discovered, and possibly promoted amongst Wikipedia editors to help improve the environment in Wikipedia?
2. If so, then what particular quality did juror #7 (Henry Fonda) possess, which set him apart, and made him the hero of the movie?
3. Might the Wikipedia environment benefit by attempting to balance the many well laid out descriptions that we already have of "how not to edit Wikipedia," with more discussions and descriptions of "how to best promote" such a quality amongst Wikipedia editors?

The Project Talk page

Any editor who may have any comments, ideas, thoughts or answers regarding any of these three questions, would be most welcome to do so, on this Project's Talk Page