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Socialization between Wikipedians is a good thing.
There has often been a perception that there is something inherently improper about mixing Wikipedia-as-encyclopedia-building with any form of socialization not directly associated with the creation of content – a perception that extends as far as to include people disliking tag-team work to build an article that involves off-line or off-wiki communication, even when there is nothing at all controversial about the article. We have refs like WP:MYSPACE and WP:NOTSOCIALNETWORK. These references have been misconstrued by many – drastically – in my opinion. Their meaning is quite limited; our content should not be myspace like, and Wikipedia should not be used as a social network. They say nothing of socialization between Wikipedians being bad, or social networks linked by Wikipedia being evil.
Common sense says that Wikipedia is an inherently social project; it is a collaborative encyclopedia designed to have articles built by users, built on software that is collaboratively built (but organized by the WMF,) intended for articles to represent essentially a summary of the average educated opinion about a subject, including multiple viewpoints. Wikimedia chapters have been created in multiple U.S. cities and dozens of countries worldwide designed essentially to promote forms of socialization that benefit the encyclopedia.This has resulted in massive benefits. We’ve built both the largest extant encyclopedia and the world’s largest collection of free media. David Ferriero, the Archivist of the United States, has lauded Wikipedia publicly. NARA, the Smithsonian, and other major institutions have made major content donations to Wikipedia and the Commons. All of this has happened because of socialization.
Many of my friends are Wikipedians. Some I met through online interactions (like working together on articles about philosophers,) some I met through real-life Wikipedia-based events (like Wikimania, Wikiconference USA,) and some I even trained (through my work with the education program, at Berkeley, and at editathons elsewhere.) Some I met through the few months I interned at the Wikimedia Foundation years ago, or later in person and online through my work with the grants program. When I say friends, I mean I really do consider many of these people friends. Some I talk to frequently – a few probably know more about me a person than almost anyone else short of former real-life partners.
Because of our shared interest in Wikipedia, it’s not an uncommon topic of conversation. Conversations will vary from abstract debates about global policies and aims, direct questions about particular content questions (which are much more quickly solicited from someone sitting next to you than a noticeboard,) and sometimes administrative issues (including “block gets messed up on my mobile, could you nuke this vandal?") Some conversations require privacy by WMF policy, and some do not. Many conversations that do require privacy are intermixed with chatter about other Wikipedia-related issues that may not necessitate the same level of privilege – but if I’m in the middle of chatting about something that by policy requires private conversation, and a minor side issue comes up, I’m not likely to take it to the relevant noticeboard so it can be openly discussed – I’ll just mention it in the conversation already happening in two sentences, and it’ll end up being resolved.
I believe that the number of friends I have who are Wikipedians has greatly contributed to the encyclopedia. It’s facilitated the creation of hundreds of articles, and grown our public image (though I’m not arrogant but to claim the tiniest responsibility for that.) Moreover, it’s had no detectable negative consequence on the encyclopedia. Wikipedia is not a social network, and the purpose of Wikipedia is not to make friends. But Wikipedia has facilitated the growth of integrally linked social networks, and has helped many people make friends.
I think this is a good thing, and am not going to apologize for having Wikipedian friends, or for talking with them – even off-wiki.