On 10/22/2013 06:11 PM, Steven Walling wrote:
This is similar the exhortation to "Be nice!" in the Flow input area. Wikipedia editors (new and old) are very smart people. They are just as likely to feel talked down to and insulted by cutesy instructions like this, and may in fact be meaner in reaction to it ("You can't tell _me_ how to talk to people."). We can collectively think of more effective ways of creating more friendly discussion spaces and creating empathy in general.
I don't actually agree with this. It may seem that people are too smart to simply do what they're requested to (be nice because they see text that says "Be nice!"). But all of modern advertising offers a counter-example. With repetition, people begin to absorb messages. If we're careful, we can use this for good.
Moreover, there are other examples of this style UX in successful site. For example, Stack Overflow has "Questions need votes, too", which is pretty self-explanatory (vote up or down on questions occasionally).
It shows up only if you actually don't vote on questions much (this model probably doesn't work for "Be nice"). And it seems to work (for me, and at least some people who I saw comment about it); it would be interesting to see stats.
This is not to say this is the only technique that works.
Matt Flaschen