research

The critics raised a very good point. Ideally, we want the social networking tools to be used to make it easier to bring people into the community, and to identify articles that need work. But the example you used -- messaging ten specific users with the same message -- can often be canvassing. Organizing people to get involved is good, but organizing people to push an agenda or a viewpoint would quickly ruin Wikipedia. I'm not sure how we can get the benefits without all the problems.

Argh! I wrote a long reply to you, Random, but my browser and then computer crashed before submitting. I'll reply properly but, briefly, I agree with you about canvassing and I don't currently see how we can both improve ease of communication without making canvassing easier too. But who knows, someone might think of a way.

I hate it when that happens. Take some time and think it through. I haven't abandoned hope. Maybe the key is that we have to build the social network around the expectations of the community. Maybe you're allowed to create a group with an interest in Atheism, but you're not allowed to create a group devoted to pushing a POV at every single religious article. Maybe mass-messages have to become a subject of scrutiny. Maybe even the friendlist itself, if people insist on befriending people based on POV, rather than general interest. We can make it work, but we have to be very realistic about some of the policies around consensus-building and battleground behavior.