[Wikipedia-l] I'm seeing a trend here or How to keep driving away good contributors

[tarquin]

Karen AKA Kajikit wrote:

> I think everyone gets 'battle fatigue'
>occasionally. I stepped back for 3 weeks because I was getting
>steamingly mad over the way we argue things round and round in circles
>to the detriment of doing the real work. 
>
Same here. The inability of the list to come to consensus is more 
wearying than edit wars.

>The thing is, like it or not, the sysops ARE a defacto police force. It
>doesn't matter that we have the ability to make these changes because we
>asked for it. We care about the pedia enough to take action when
>necessary. And yes, I think that should include the temporary banning of
>people who repeatedly violate the code of conduct for the wikipedia. I
>agree with KQ about this - atm the code of conduct is unwritten,
>
well, no, it's not.
we have plenty of pages about the nature of the project, the etiquette & 
so forth. Granted, many need a spring clean. We've cleaned up the FAQ 
pages, so maybe these will come next.

We shouldn't worry too much about Meatball's Life cycle page -- 
Wikipedia is unlike any other wiki. It is much larger, has much more 
traffic, and has different goals.

I like the idea of pointing offenders to policy pages. -- I suggested a 
"shoulder-tap" a while back, which would give the "offender" (loaded 
terminology, sorry) a clear message above *every edit box they saw* 
until they responded in some way. This wouldn't prevent them from 
editing, but one would hope that a *rational* and *intelligent* user 
would investigate, read up, and change their behaviour.

I am all for giving people benefit of the doubt, and assuming good 
faith. But if, after attempts at communication, people still persist in 
their behaviour, we should be quick to ban.