Re: [Commons-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay)

Food for thought. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Michel Vuijlsteke <wikipedia(a)zog.org> Date: 22 February 2011 16:29 Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Friendliness (was: Missing Wikipedians: An Essay) To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List <foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org On 22 February 2011 14:14, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru> wrote: I don't think it has to be as obviously annoying as slathering templates all over pages or wikilawyering the newbies away -- it's often much more subtle how content/data seems to be considered more important than people. One interaction I encountered recently is typical. Michiel Hendryckx, one of Belgium's best-known photographers, started uploading fairly high-resolution, good quality images to Wikipedia (well, Commons) on 3 July 2010. Stuff like this 1983 Chet Baker portrait: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Chet675.jpg The first message on his talk page was a request to confirm his identity (which he did). The second message was a complaint by Nikbot (no valid license for one particular image). A couple of hours later, at 10:51 on 4 July, the next message is from CategorizationBot, asking Hendryckx to add categories to his images. The third message, not six hours later, was this: *Please categorize our images !!!* You already have been asked by a bot to categorize your images. Therefore I don't understand why you keep on uploading images without categories. Uploading images without categorizing them doesn't make sense. Only categorized images can be found! I'm pretty sure the user in question meant really well, but *this* is what that focusing on content over people means to me. It's in the small things, the interactions that experienced Wikipedians take in their stride, but that can end up scaring people away. It's like the last message on Hendryckx' talk page, dated 1 February 2011: a notification that one if this images is listed at commons:deletion requests, and to "please do not take the deletion request personally... thank you!". Follow the link to the discussion ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Van_istend…) : turns out the requester couldn't see the image. His/her first action was to nominate the image for deletion. Took about three hours for someone to confirm that no, the image works perfectly fine for them, and about five hours for the original person to close the deletion request ("thanks"). Again: content over people. No personal interaction with the photographer, no message on the photographer's talk page after the deletion request was closed, nothing. The last interaction Hendryckx had on Commons -- on 19 February, almost three weeks after the deletion request was closed -- was a baffled question ( http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons_talk:Deletion_requests/File:Van_i…) , asking what on Earth is wrong with the image, and that he'd like to at least know why it needed to be deleted. Again, I'm sure the user in question meant really well again, but here too: content over people. Drive-by templating, shoot first, don't ask questions, don't even provide feedback, trust people will read every last word in the templates, etc. Michel Vuijlsteke _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l _______________________________________________ Commons-l mailing list Commons-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/commons-l