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