User talk:Humble servant

This thread suggests a naive understanding of why people contribute, an assumption that a preferred motive is a prerequisite of contributing, that administrators are qualified to assess motivation, and that contributors' motivation is consistent from moment to moment and from day to day. All of these flawed premises represent a lack of clinical experience in dealing with human behavior.

People likely contribute for a variety of reasons. A most likely reason for contributing is a trend for people to do what they are told. A repeated compliance message that states "edit this page" will likely provoke responses from a large number of people whose interests might not, at any given moment, coincide with the interests of a large group comprising a revolving membership. A primary reason people contribute, regardless claims to the contrary that suggest egalitarian motivation, is that people obtain personal satisfaction by adding text to the database and seeing it appear in a shared corpus. People might seek to satisfy both the request to "edit this page" and whatever internal and transient motivation they experience at that moment. Any act that threatens to diminish satisfaction potentially escalates contributions offered by a member whose contributions are widely disliked. A more rational approach used in clinical settings attempts to identify the interests of an individual, seeks to identify conflicting interests that might motivate an individual and helps the individual identify the interest most likely to result in satisfaction. Efforts to force individuals to satisfy a group are only likely to succeed with individuals who have a need for group acceptance. A one-size fits all approach seldom works in clinical practice, and efforts to identify irreparable socio-pathology stand little chance of success with the limited testing instruments employed by administrators or members of an asynchronous electronic network.


 * It is difficult for me to take seriously individuals that cringe in hatred when presented with information that encourages broader thinking about the nature of conflicts. Is it perhaps that they fear loosing a sense of authority gained by controlling dialogue to best represent their liking? I would not want the respect or agreement of people who accept me on the basis of a reputation or actions elsewhere instead of on the content of what I am saying.

Humble servant 22:02, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

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Whatever is going on with this, no rational analyst could conclude that deleting this information from the talk page is in any way related to developing a more functional community or a more accurate encyclopedia. Maybe somebody has a problem with impulse control. Grown up 05:27, 11 Apr 2004 (UTC)