On 1/27/06, Tony Sidaway <f.crdfa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Agreed. There have been tentative advances on this
front, for instance
in the recently concluded webcomics case where two issues were
addressed: attempts to alter deletion policy without discussion, and
alienating newcomers by smearing them as trolls and ridiculing them.
The alienating newcomers part is what particularly concerns me. I
think those on the 'front lines' of fighting vandalism and spam get
very rapidly jaded and cynical, and start assuming bad faith
automatically. In truth, I find, most newcomer editors are operating
in good faith. Not being that familiar with the Wikipedia project, of
course, many are in good faith attempting to do things we don't want
or in ways that aren't the ways Wikipedia uses, but that should not
allow us to think they mean any harm.
It is a mistake to put these people on the defensive, to make them
feel attacked. Not all of them are capable or interested in being
Wikipedia editors, but some of them will be - among whom may be many
people capable of being excellent content editors once they understand
the project better. It is not in our best interests to burn these
people.
Even if their ultimate goals are not compatible with the Wikipedia
project and they won't make useful contributors, we should endeavor to
handle them politely.
Of course, some contributors are not acting in good faith. However,
we should keep in mind that they may simply be misguided. Those
adding spam links, for example, may not realise how much this is
frowned upon here; seeing external links in many articles, they might
simply have assumed that linking to on-topic external sites is
acceptable.
Even with bad-faith contributors, it would be a good thing to handle
them with as little drama and provocation as possible. If we have to
show them the door, let's do it quietly and politely.
There have been some cases of editors using the
laudable principle
that the debate is not a vote as a kind of two-by-four with which to
browbeat people who make too-brief statements. While it is desirable
to have a good debate, this is not facilitated by having some
participants haranguing others in this manner.
Again, goes back to assuming good faith. Encouragement to elaborate
is a good thing, but not browbeating.
References to specific items in the undeletion policy
are almost
absent from the Deletion Review page, and some of the statements that
are there go directly against the principles of the undeletion policy.
A notice by me informing editors that I am temporarily undeleting
pages that are subject to good faith nominations for undeletion has
been removed twice on the pretext that my notice "wasn't discussed".
There is in short a palpably abusive atmosphere in these forums. at
least one such undeleted article has been deleted as "improperly
undeleted." The presumption of bad faith is the norm.
I personally feel that Deletion Review has a worse record than AFD or
the other deletion forums.
-Matt