Kelly Martin wrote:
> This is the core, underlying attitude that dooms
Wikipedia to
> mediocrity. Thousands of volunteer projects exist
worldwide that
> places often quite strenuous obligations on their
volunteers. (Think
> Habitat for Humanity.) And yet these projects survive,
even thrive.
> Wikipedia already has a good core of volunteers who are
willing to do
> as requested. We need to stop pandering to the
self-centered lazy
> "volunteers" who will "only do what is
fun" and instead target the
> committed volunteer who is willing to do the hard stuff
that needs to
> be done.
>
By happy chance, and through Project Gutenberg's good
graces, I've just
been reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer again. After the
fence gets
painted, Twain ends the chapter with:
If [Tom] had been a great and wise philosopher, like the
writer of
this book, he would now have comprehended that Work
consists of
whatever a body is / obliged / to do, and that Play
consists of
whatever a body is not obliged to do. And this would
help him to
understand why constructing artificial flowers or
performing on a
tread-mill is work, while rolling ten-pins or climbing
Mont Blanc is
only amusement. There are wealthy gentlemen in England
who drive
four-horse passenger-coaches twenty or thirty miles on a
daily line,
in the summer, because the privilege costs them
considerable money;
but if they were offered wages for the service, that
would turn it
into work and then they would resign.
I think the only thing that has changed in 150 years is that
treadmills
are no longer work, but play.
William
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