On 2/22/11 9:32 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> Food for thought.
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Michel Vuijlsteke<
wikipedia@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@lists.wikimedia.org>
>
>
> On 22 February 2011 14:14, Yaroslav M. Blanter<
putevod@mccme.ru> wrote:
>
>>
>>> We have to make a profound choice in the culture here:
>>> 1) we continue with the whacking and scaring the newbies away (content
>>> priority #1, people #2), or
>>> 2) we embrace the newbies and we let some spam through (people priority
>> #1,
>>> content #2).
>>>
>>> So far we are steadily moving along the first route. I believe, it is
>> time
>>> we switch the priorities. People are important. It's the people who will
>> be
>>> creating content in the future, and not the other way around. Wikipedia
>>> will
>>> inevitably fail without participation. And content... we are already the
>>> largest and the best...
>>>
>>> Renata
>>
>> To me it sounds too much black and white. Indeed, there are points you
>> better not stumble across as an editor: engaging into battles over disputed
>> content (like Middle East conflict), writing articles on smth with disputed
>> notability, pushing POV or not getting immediately the image upload rules.
>> But I assume this is a relatively minor fraction of editors (though of
>> course it still represents a problem). I can not recall that I ever got any
>> templates in my articles (I have written over 500 of them since 2007),
>> except for a couple of times from a bot that there are no links to the
>> article, and that I ever got any angry comments from admins/other editors
>> concerning the articles I have written.
>>
>
> 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_istendael675.jpg):
> 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_istendael675.jpg),
> 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
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