I have given up on that post. I am OK with your edit after you put the numbers back. I put those there deliberately to make it easy to talk about specific points. However, this whole community wiki thing has taught me not to spend time on something like this again.
The people managing this site have failed to think about this from a content author's point of view. Think about why people are here answering questions. No, it's not to help others with their silly-ass problems. There is no such thing. Everybody does things for reasons for themselves. Those that appear to give something freely to others are doing it for a reason, like possibly to feel good about themselves, to satisfy a inner moral standard, or whatever.
The same goes for people answering questions here. I do it because sometimes there are interesting problems, but a lot of it has to do with reputation and looking like the smart guy in the room. By reputation I mean the intellectual kind, not the numerical values we earn on this web site. The numerical reputation has no intrinsic value, except that high numerical reputation enhances intellectual reputation, which does have value. Since I am primarily a consultant, intellectual repuation and respsect from peers is not just for ego stroking, but can make a real business difference. I have been here less than a year, but at least one job I got was a direct result of looking like a smart guy here.
Writing the piece on schematic drawing had been in the back of my mind for a while. After writing two separate answers to similar questions and then Kortuk suggesting a more comprehensive writeup, I decided to do it. Anyone who has written similar things before knows it takes longer than it looks. It took a number of hours to collect the thoughts in a presentable form, write them up, make some drawings, go over everything several times, etc. In other words, such things take real work, which people aren't going to do unless they think there will be some return. It's sortof like writing a research paper. You don't get paid for that, but you expect some intellectual credit and reputation in return.
Community wiki negates that. From a author's point of view, it takes but doesn't give anything back, so why bother? Other people can edit and add to your "paper", so nobody gets clear credit for their work. Worse, you could end up looking like you said something you don't agree with, although that didn't happen in this case. On top of that, you can't even earn numerical reputation points after it's converted to community wiki. Seriously, what do I get out of it? Spending effort on a paper that effectively gets taken away from you is pointless.
I had plans to expand on that post periodically, but that's not going to happen as things are now.
