On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 9:16 PM, Theo10011 <de10011@gmail.com> wrote:

As for starting "Wiki editing" you might want to start yourself. I suggest your userpage on Meta, which if I recall I told you to create a month ago.

Ooooh! Can we please cut out these sort of unconstructive, personal comments. They don't help anyone or anything.

I assure you this was not a personal comment. You might want to look at the Meta talk page for IEP here [1] where admins who first dealt with the issue played a game charades to find out who was actually in-charge of IEP. It has editors from enwp, trying to deduce who Nitika.t is

And with all due respect back, Theo, this thread is about the IEP - not about Nitika's editing prowess. So your comment strikes me as irrelevant - and I'm sorry, but even if I'm in a minority of one, it did come across as personal to me.

I also feel that comments like these have a strong effect on those whom they name thus - they silence them. Specially when they are relatively new to this culture, and even more so, when they are participating in a very difficult and somewhat hostile thread. And they silence others who may have spoken out.

So while applauding Nitika for sharing her views in this space, I also want to urge that you and I not get into a slanging match on this point. Let's agree to disagree, since I doubt we will agree on this.

At the same time, I very much appreciate your efforts to help and nurture Nitika, which did come through in the earlier email too.

Best
Bishakha

Yes, I agree to disagree on this, but I still fail to see how I made it personal. I try my best to avoid ad hominem attacks, it breaches the line of good debate with an argument, but I agree my tone can seem harsh at times, and in hindsight I could have stated my point a bit better. But what you seem to misunderstand as personal is actually her professional work. Please correct me, she is indeed a paid employee/contractor, and part of that job involves editing a wiki, a big part. I fail to see how any criticism or comments about it can be deemed personal.

Second, it wasn't her editing prowess, it was something that I already informed her about, twice. Creating a userpage is the first form of identification on a wiki, without it, people have no idea if that user is actually an editor, an employee, or a vandal. As an admin, I thought it was my job to inform her, especially when others were confused about her identity.

Besides this, I also don't understand the point about, comments like mine silencing editors. Are you arguing, I should hold her to lesser standards than another editor even when she is a paid staff member in a position of authority? There are new volunteers who join everyday who are new to the culture, I'm all for being nice to them, but she has been in a position of authority, leading the program. Instead of leading by example, people have a hard time identifying her.