Fred Bauder, I like black people but ... Options

[tarantino]

In response to the question "Why American Wikimedian community is exclusively white?" on the mailing list, Fred says:

The short answer: Wikipedia editors are volunteers and African-Americans
rarely volunteer.

The medium answer: African-American editors often edit only articles
which relate to African-American and do that in a point of view way.

The long answer: large blocks of African-American are oppressed,
unemployed, poorly educated, and computer illiterate. Those that are
educated and prosperous tend to be too busy, and as said, are not in the
habit of volunteering.

"Wow. Maybe you can follow Phoebe's example and cite some evidence?"

A reaction like this is expected to any honest straightforward
observation that is not politically correct. I lived in the Five Points
neighborhood of Denver for yeara. I like Black people, but there are
issues.

[Kelly Martin]

There's a difference between volunteering to do something for the greater benefit of a community of which one is a member (even if that community is "humankind as a whole"), and "volunteering" to do something because it amuses you. I wager that most of the people "volunteering" at Wikipedia are doing it because it amuses them to do so; that is, the motivation is self-centered (for the primary benefit of the self) instead of outward (for the primary benefit of others). Essentially, for most Wikipedians, Wikipedia is a hobby, not a volunteer activity.

[thekohser]

There's a difference between volunteering to do something for the greater benefit of a community of which one is a member (even if that community is "humankind as a whole"), and "volunteering" to do something because it amuses you. I wager that most of the people "volunteering" at Wikipedia are doing it because it amuses them to do so; that is, the motivation is self-centered (for the primary benefit of the self) instead of outward (for the primary benefit of others). Essentially, for most Wikipedians, Wikipedia is a hobby, not a volunteer activity.

That is an excellent point, absolutely true.

[Milton Roe]

There's a difference between volunteering to do something for the greater benefit of a community of which one is a member (even if that community is "humankind as a whole"), and "volunteering" to do something because it amuses you. I wager that most of the people "volunteering" at Wikipedia are doing it because it amuses them to do so; that is, the motivation is self-centered (for the primary benefit of the self) instead of outward (for the primary benefit of others). Essentially, for most Wikipedians, Wikipedia is a hobby, not a volunteer activity.

That is an excellent point, absolutely true.

What if doing something for "humankind as a whole" or even some identifiable schlub in a bad hole, is what amuses me? Or satisfies me? Or allows me to enjoy life? It's hard for me to enjoy anything in life when somebody right in front of me, for reasons not their fault, isn't enjoying life in a way I can easily fix. That's a pretty basic human response, far apart from religion or anything else. It's sort of primal and not reducible to any simpler stuff, since it's probably all bound/wound up in family bonds and community bonds and being a social animal.

Plus, I'm not storing up treasures in Heaven. I don't believe in Heaven.

[Kelly Martin]

What if doing something for "humankind as a whole" or even some identifiable schlub in a bad hole, is what amuses me? Or satisfies me? Or allows me to enjoy life? It's hard for me to enjoy anything in life when somebody right in front of me, for reasons not their fault, isn't enjoying life in a way I can easily fix. That's a pretty basic human response, far apart from religion or anything else. It's sort of primal and not reducible to any simpler stuff, since it's probably all bound/wound up in family bonds and community bonds and being a social animal.

Three points here. One, obviously the line between self-gratification and altruism is blurry. Two, the degree to which it's blurry varies from individual to individual. Three, in most people one or the other dominates in any particular action, and it's usually possible to separate the two.

Obviously there's such a thing as self-interested volunteerism: anybody who pitches in to help repair neighborhood community center is engaged in such activity. However, I still consider it genuine volunteerism when one's primary, proximal motivation is to benefit a broader group, even when self-interested motivations are also present. "Fixing someone else's problem that you can easily fix" without expecting compensation is, simply put, altruism, even if you do it because failing to do it makes you feel uneasy, or because doing it makes you feel better about yourself. (It can be argued that if you do not experience those responses, you're morally defective. There's a reason we call such people "heartless" and "callous" and, well, "inhuman".)

In the case of the average Wikipedian, the communal motivation is, I suspect, largely absent, or at least submerged; these people are doing it because they enjoy correcting typos or spelling (that's what drew me in originally), or because stalking vandals gives them an adrenaline rush, or because they want to be an admin because admins are cool, or because they want everyone else to see how terribly smart, erudite, or literate they are. They're not doing it "for that starving child in Africa"; that's at best a secondary motivation, or even a pretext. Yes, there are certainly some Wikipedians who honestly want to share their knowledge solely for the betterment of mankind, but I'm quite certain that they're the minority.

There are compulsive volunteerers: people who have made volunteering (or altruism generally) into a hobby. I've run into a few of them; some of them are very good at what they do, others are not. But I think there's relatively few of them on Wikipedia, if for no other reason that most of them are too busy serving with a dozen other community organizations to edit Wikipedia.

[TungstenCarbide]

What if doing something for "humankind as a whole" or even some identifiable schlub in a bad hole, is what amuses me? Or satisfies me? Or allows me to enjoy life? It's hard for me to enjoy anything in life when somebody right in front of me, for reasons not their fault, isn't enjoying life in a way I can easily fix. That's a pretty basic human response, far apart from religion or anything else. It's sort of primal and not reducible to any simpler stuff, since it's probably all bound/wound up in family bonds and community bonds and being a social animal.

Three points here. One, obviously the line between self-gratification and altruism is blurry. Two, the degree to which it's blurry varies from individual to individual. Three, in most people one or the other dominates in any particular action, and it's usually possible to separate the two.

There's another point, Kelly. Volunteering makes a person feel better about themselves, much like caring for a house plant raises one's self-esteem, which doesn't fall under the self-gratification classification. When done as a group, volunteering benefits the community's self-image as well as the individual volunteer's, reinforcing the positive strictures of society. Let's face it, you take off the restrictions that society places on humans and we are not pleasant creatures, not compared to dogs anyway as Diogenes was fond of pointing out. Being civilized creatures takes constant work, and volunteering in your community helps polish some of the rough edges. It helps the recipients, the volunteers and the community as a whole. A healthy self-image is important for a species that goes to church on Sunday when not engaging in genocides.

That being said, wikipedia is a MMORPG or a diversion for most of the addicts there, not a volunteer activity.

This post has been edited by TungstenCarbide: Fri 19th November 2010, 8:08am

[Cla68]

What if doing something for "humankind as a whole" or even some identifiable schlub in a bad hole, is what amuses me? Or satisfies me? Or allows me to enjoy life? It's hard for me to enjoy anything in life when somebody right in front of me, for reasons not their fault, isn't enjoying life in a way I can easily fix. That's a pretty basic human response, far apart from religion or anything else. It's sort of primal and not reducible to any simpler stuff, since it's probably all bound/wound up in family bonds and community bonds and being a social animal.

Three points here. One, obviously the line between self-gratification and altruism is blurry. Two, the degree to which it's blurry varies from individual to individual. Three, in most people one or the other dominates in any particular action, and it's usually possible to separate the two.

There's another point, Kelly. Volunteering makes a person feel better about themselves, much like caring for a house plant raises one's self-esteem, which doesn't fall under the self-gratification classification. When done as a group, volunteering benefits the community's self-image as well as the individual volunteer's, reinforcing the positive strictures of society. Let's face it, you take off the restrictions that society places on humans and we are not pleasant creatures, not compared to dogs anyway as Diogenes was fond of pointing out. Being civilized creatures takes constant work, and volunteering in your community helps polish some of the rough edges. It helps the recipients, the volunteers and the community as a whole. A healthy self-image is important for a species that goes to church on Sunday when not engaging in genocides.

That being said, wikipedia is a MMORPG or a diversion for most of the addicts there, not a volunteer activity.

Both you and Kelly made some really good points. My participation in Wikipedia is not primarily because of altruism, but because it allows me to explore the minutia of one of my hobbies (the Pacific War). I don't think I'm alone in that. If I was motivated by altruism, I would be spending less time with Wikipeida and trying harder to learn Japanese and then running for the local political assembly of the Japanese town where I live, as there are social issues in Japan which need resolving. Wikipedia is hobby or pasttime for most its regular contributors. Improving an article does not give a child in African improved immunity to cholera or tuburculosis. It does not give a bed or sufficient nutrition to an American child in the Mississippi Delta. It's a hobby. Contributors to the WMF need to realize that a percentage of their contributions go to funding a big-city, metropolitan lifestyle in San Francisco for the WMF staff, not to feeding Chinese peasants trying to farm polluted land or Cambodian farmers trying to clear land mines from their farm land.

This post has been edited by Cla68: Sat 20th November 2010, 4:11pm

[Milton Roe]

Both you and Kelly made some really good points. My participation in Wikipedia is not primarily because of altruism, but because it allows me to explore the minutia of one of my hobbies (the Pacific War). I don't think I'm alone in that. If I was motivated by altruism, I would be spending less time with Wikipeida and trying harder to learn Japanese and then running for the local political assembly of the Japanese town where I live, as there are social issues in Japan which need resolving. Wikipedia is hobby or pasttime for most its regular contributors. Improving an article does not give a child in African improved immunity to cholera or tuburculosis. It does not give a bed or sufficient nutrition to an American child in the Mississippi Delta. It's a hobby.

Yes, but your hobby could be putting the wings off flies, too. What makes you choose some hobbies over others?

I happen to believe that along with empathy as a primary, all healthy people are born with cleanup impulses that (especially as they grow into adults) make them fix messes (of any kind). We clean. We clean our children, our floors, our cars, we clean and oil our firearms. The people who weren't at all concerned with such stuff didn't leave us their genes, since they were slobs and fuckups they never got a date or their children died.

This stuff is only OCD if it interferes with your life. OCD is abnormal amounts of a perfectly normal impulse. People who have NONE of this impulse are like children. They're also unemployable, since all jobs worth anything involve cleaning up one mess or another (whether on a hard drive, a network, or in Aisle 9).

Now, we've all cleaned up messes as volunteers. Beer cans and soft drink cups in a park that need to go in the trash. If you do that yourself, you don't say: "I'm doing this for Jesus, to earn my place in Heaven!" Nor do you tell yourself that you're on a quest for Humanity. You just think "What an eyesore-- some drunk person or some kid didn't clean up their mess, so some responsible adult has to do it for them..."

Okay, now suppose we see somebody ELSE pick up the soft drink cup at the park and trash it? Do we say: "What a dweeb! That guy must have NO LIFE. He's doing the city's JOB for them, without being PAID. What an idiot. I'll bet he lives in his mother's basement. It probably gives him a big sense of authority to do a city job, like he actually HAD a job.... "

You know, playing devil's advocate, that would really be unfair. As also, any smart remarks about how the guy probably thinks he's being a Great Altruist (like this is helping the starving in Africa-- not), when actually he's merely satisfying his sick obsessiveness about orderliness at the park, or maybe just wasting his valuable time. Or, if he's doing it with a friend, that maybe this is just a mask for a social activity, and gets him no points at all therefore, for being a good-guy.

See my point?

Mr. Trashy