User talk:FF7Freakzorz/Sig Book

Utility of pages like this one
I'd ask that the people who are creating and using these signature book consider if they are using Wikipedia as a social networking tool first and contributing to the encyclopedia last, if at all.

Some sample data:

While clearly the raw numbers aren't all of the story (look mine up if you wish, for an example) they do serve as a rough guide.

Studies by B. J. Fogg tie the sucess of sites such as Flickr and MySpace to quasi-random positive feedback for actions that improve the site. Focus on that last bit: Improve the site.

The autograph books are an overtly facile manner in which to interact, have no foundation in improving the encyclopedia, and are a quasi-viral meme that's going to grow rapidly in some sectors if not nipped in the bud. It is terribly easy to make and participate in the "get lots of signatures" race, which has two immediate results: 1) Re-enforcement for placing ever-larger numbers of sigs in other people's books to get them to sign yours, and B) Ever-greater dilution of the value of an individual signature. In very short order the "fun-nes" of this will be killed off by its own success, but the practice will probably stagger on, replicating itself in neophytes for ages.

I know this is a mostly harmless activity. I know the costs in disc space and bandwidth are infinitesimal. I know this seems like an odd request. And please don't think I've a fetish against groovy signatures or anything. (My current one is fairly plain but that's just because I'm feeling very black skivvy right now.) I'd just like to see this energy diverted somewhere else.

brenneman 00:17, 4 February 2007 (UTC)