On 10/29/2011 12:45 AM, gendergap-request@lists.wikimedia.org wrote:
In other words, as a community we create a climate where poor behaviour is the most effective means to motivate needed changes, where our policies and practices can be used as weapons both to support negative behaviour and also to "punish" positive behaviour, where the boundaries of unacceptable behaviour vary widely dependent on a large number of factors and enforcement is extraordinarily inconsistent, and where we openly claim to follow a behavioural model that*sounds* progressive but is in reality possibly even more nasty than our own.
On reading far, far back into archives, it appears that "incivility" has been a problem almost since the inception of the project. In the early days of the project, blocks and bans were almost non-existent, and huge amounts of time were invested in trying to "correct" behaviour (considerably more per capita than today, the community cuts its losses much earlier now than in 2002-04). In fact, blocks and bans were very rare until the arrival of extensive trolling and vandalism in 2005-06, which led to the appointment of a massive number of administrators in 2006-07 in order to address these problems.
None of this speaks to solutions, I know. But it is important to put the discussion into a more historical context, and to recognize the flashpoints where incivility is often identified.
Risker/Anne
http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2005/05/a-group-is-its-own-worst-enemy.html
"As a community grows, these types of rules-- neither social nor technical, but a hybrid of both-- become critical to the survival of the community. If moderators fail to step in, the damage can be fatal."
"The likelihood that any unmoderated group will eventually get into a flame-war about whether or not to have a moderator approaches one as time increases."
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From my experience (on hr wiki), biggest problem a group (wikiproject) can have are moderators(admins) which are not up to the task.
And I am admin (and bureaucrat and CU) who sometimes was but sometimes also wasn't up to the task, and trolls used that to the maximum.
En wiki is big, so it will not break if one relatively civil troll hurts and drive away 1, 10 or even 50 normal users, but on small projects one or two such trolls can break WHOLE project either for a year of two, or even longer.
Although consequences are not the same, solution should be the same:
Wikipedia is a project its users are a group this project harbors free language and freedom of thought but trolls should be banned on spot. Sooner the better.
Longer the discussion, more damage to the project.
(longer the discussion with troll, or discussion should troll be blocked or not and for how long - trolls should be blocked for good).
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Notice: I didn't check ANY edit of (problematic) user subject of this thread, so I don't know is he or isn't he a troll, and I don't care.
If he is, he should be blocked for good, sooner the better.
If he isn't, all who are writing bad here about him are paranoids.
Beware: smart trolling is very similar to normal argument. So it is very easy to let it go, but damage become bigger with every message troll posts.
Kind regards