[WikiEN-l] Moderation on this mailing list

[Marc Riddell]

on 2/22/07 1:44 PM, William Pietri at william at scissor.com wrote:

> I'd agree with that. On the other hand, there's this pattern I'm worried
> about that goes something like this:
> 
> 1. A new user tries to do something that seems reasonable to them,
> but is annoying to us -- e.g., adding their friend's band to
> Wikipedia.
> 2. Almost instantly they receive a boilerplate negative reaction from
> us -- e.g., their article is speedied.
> 3. They struggle to understand what the hell is going on and do
> something they think is reasonable -- let's say they replace the
> speedy template with {{hangon}} and go on editing their article.
> 4. They get another instant boilerplate negative reaction and
> experience more frustration -- perhaps they get the template back,
> a user page warning for removing speedies, and an edit conflict to
> boot.
> 5. After repeatedly being frustrated in trying to do something they
> think is useful, they express their frustration with less than
> perfect politeness.
> 6. The cycle of negative interactions spirals until they end up blocked.
> 
> 
> And then from here, I'm sure a most of those people just go away,
> nursing their burnt fingers and telling their pals what jerks those
> Wikipedians are. A few of them take it as a great injustice and turn
> into long-term enemies.
> 
> For this to happen, I don't think there need to be malice on either
> side, just ordinary human nature. My mother, who lives in a town with
> one stop light, would occasionally drive to Chicago to visit me. She was
> convinced that all Chicago drivers were either vicious or insane. Most
> of them weren't, but they were used to moving at such a pace and with
> such a focus on throughput that she took it as hostility and madness.
> They in turn saw her as hopelessly clueless and inconsiderate, and a
> great barrier to progress.

I absolutely relate to what your mother was feeling! Been there!
> 
> I would rather we took more time with these people, as I think we
> currently create more enemies than we need, and discourage potential
> contributors.
> 
> William

William,


Excellent, insightful post. Thanks.

I am going to suggest something as a possible remedy for the problems you
brought up.

When I first joined the WP Community I not only had no idea how to maneuver
within WP (and, yes I had read all of the intro stuff) my computer skills
consisted of point & click ­ anything beyond that and I had to scream for a
computer tech. From day one, this wonderful WP Community Member came out of
the woodwork to help. They answered the 1000+ questions I had, and actually
helped me to format my User Page. I was very grateful for this, and it also
gave me an indication of, and made he very comfortable with, the WP culture.

So, how about this: When a new person registers to join the WP Community
they are automatically assigned, designated (whatever term you want) to an
established Community Member. This established Member would act as their
mentor for a given period of time. And any questions or problems the new
Member may have in the beginning could be mentored by this person.

If an idea like this has been proposed before & rejected, I would love to
know why. If it hasn¹t as yet, what do you think?

Marc Riddell