The below is a reminder of how useful it would be to put more emphasis on letting new editors know that Wikiquette Alerts exist, encouraging them to complain and then encouraging admins to just go to editors who attack others, even with minor snide remarks, and encourage them not to do it. That's the kind of peer pressure that works best. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikiquette_alerts
Even as a very assertive person and a relatively bold editor, it took me almost two years before I started going to such venues for help. Sadly, I didn't often get it. I think it would be the one single thing that could keep women who start editing from stopping. The bad boys might call it "snitching." We should call it empowerment - or maybe, considering the average age of the perpetrators, good parenting! ;-)
It really has to be it's own little wikiproject, or subgroup, or something. I haven't been paying much attention to wikipedia last could months myself so can't remember the various options.
Carol in dc
On 6/23/2011 5:22 PM, Charlotte J wrote:
....I appreciate the encouraging assessment, but my experiences with the other editors on the two article talk pages that I described to Sue were in some ways even more off-putting because in their cases it was so impersonal ("We SCORN your miserable little crumb, even if it's correct!").
I then made the mistake of clicking through a notice of a pending Article for Deletion discussion (first time ever) of an article whose subject is within my field of expertise: it was like reading through a dark parody of deliberative debate. I posted to that one and nothing bad happened to me (I was completely ignored, I think, except in the totaling of votes), then followed a second one initiated by the same nominator concerning another article in the same field and although nothing bad was said to me there either, I was utterly aghast at the kinds of things that other editors were saying to and about each other, which was the point at which I finally decided to stop editing.
Thank you, as well, for the kind welcome.
Best,
Charlotte