Mailing List Archive

Re: FW: [Wikinews-l] Increased incivility atwikinews [en] <warning: contains rant>
Jesse (Pathoschild) wrote:
>> George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Civility, or more properly abusive editors, is not a petty problem.
>>> If I had Jimbo's God-Emperor powers several existing WP users would
>>> be walked out the door and invited to not come back, on the grounds
>>> that they are persistently abusive and disruptive to other users.
>>> Even being a long time positive contributor cannot overcome the
>>> damage done to the community and other editors in particular when
>>> one problem abusive user persists. The damage is both severe in
>>> the acute sense and insidious in the long term community values
>>> sense.
>>
>>
>> I disagree that divine intervention is a solution, but I agree with
>> the principle that a productive editor who cannot collaborate is not
>> a productive editor. Perhaps you and others can take a look at <
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Collaboration_first >, and put
>> together a convincing essay to that effect. Convincing the silent
>> majority to take a cohesive stance against such behaviour is one
>> possible solution.
>>
>> --
>> Yours cordially,
>> Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)

For every hundred or so editors whose only contributions are vandalism,
there may be one or two editors with long-term positive contributions but
who have issues with working with less-gifted editors, but who fail the
behavioural standards, and it's always (in my experience) a difficult
dichotomy between kicking these people out of the door and culturing their
behaviour so as to benefit the encyclopedia. On balance, I feel that these
editors are too much trouble to be worth expending effort on; their
specialist expertise is not necessarily unique, and the content they bring
could equally be brought by someone else. Although our ethos is intended to
be collegiate, these editors don't get it and rely on [[WP:TRUTH]]. Sorry,
but they should be invited to contribute somewhere else.



_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: FW: [Wikinews-l] Increased incivility atwikinews [en] <warning: contains rant> [ In reply to ]
On Thu, Feb 5, 2009 at 4:10 PM, Phil Nash <pn007a2145@blueyonder.co.uk>wrote:

> ...and it's always (in my experience) a difficult
> dichotomy between kicking these people out of the door and culturing their
> behaviour so as to benefit the encyclopedia.


I think this is somewhat of a false dichotomy - making a good faith effort
to warn and discuss and work with problematic editors is almost always the
best course, with banning an unfortunate less desirable second choice if the
situation persists for long periods of time.

Most people do respond well to good faith efforts to get them to behave
better...


--
-george william herbert
george.herbert@gmail.com
_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: FW: [Wikinews-l] Increased incivility atwikinews [en] <warning: contains rant> [ In reply to ]
> be collegiate, these editors don't get it and rely on [[WP:TRUTH]]. Sorry,
> but they should be invited to contribute somewhere else.

That's a wonderful idea. I will be starting Fightopedia, a Wikipedia
clone for people who want to cut each other's throats out over article
content. No civility allowed, you will be called names and banned on
sight if you're spotted being civil.

skype: node.ue



2009/2/5 Phil Nash <pn007a2145@blueyonder.co.uk>:
> Jesse (Pathoschild) wrote:
>>> George Herbert <george.herbert@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>> Civility, or more properly abusive editors, is not a petty problem.
>>>> If I had Jimbo's God-Emperor powers several existing WP users would
>>>> be walked out the door and invited to not come back, on the grounds
>>>> that they are persistently abusive and disruptive to other users.
>>>> Even being a long time positive contributor cannot overcome the
>>>> damage done to the community and other editors in particular when
>>>> one problem abusive user persists. The damage is both severe in
>>>> the acute sense and insidious in the long term community values
>>>> sense.
>>>
>>>
>>> I disagree that divine intervention is a solution, but I agree with
>>> the principle that a productive editor who cannot collaborate is not
>>> a productive editor. Perhaps you and others can take a look at <
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Collaboration_first >, and put
>>> together a convincing essay to that effect. Convincing the silent
>>> majority to take a cohesive stance against such behaviour is one
>>> possible solution.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Yours cordially,
>>> Jesse Plamondon-Willard (Pathoschild)
>
> For every hundred or so editors whose only contributions are vandalism,
> there may be one or two editors with long-term positive contributions but
> who have issues with working with less-gifted editors, but who fail the
> behavioural standards, and it's always (in my experience) a difficult
> dichotomy between kicking these people out of the door and culturing their
> behaviour so as to benefit the encyclopedia. On balance, I feel that these
> editors are too much trouble to be worth expending effort on; their
> specialist expertise is not necessarily unique, and the content they bring
> could equally be brought by someone else. Although our ethos is intended to

>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: FW: [Wikinews-l] Increased incivility atwikinews [en] <warning: contains rant> [ In reply to ]
Phil Nash wrote:

> who have issues with working with less-gifted editors, but who
> fail the behavioural standards, and it's always (in my
> experience) a difficult dichotomy between kicking these people
> out of the door and culturing their behaviour so as to benefit
> the encyclopedia. On balance, I feel that these editors are too
> much trouble to be worth expending effort on;

People who get carried away by their own feelings, should better
attend to tasks where their feelings matter less. If an otherwise
productive user tends to get involved in POV/NPOV fights, perhaps
they should try to proofread scanned books in Wikisource instead
of writing articles on controversial topics in Wikipedia. All
their energy can be better used when the only goal is to get the
letters and words right, instead of getting the opinions right.

Next time, instead of banning them from Wikipedia, see if you can
recruit them to Wikisource.


--
Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se)
Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

_______________________________________________
foundation-l mailing list
foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l