On 11 December 2011 14:13, Tony Sidaway tonysidaway@gmail.com wrote:
Our own internal discussions have long reflected on the unfriendliness and undue bureaucracy of Wikipedia. Generally we're good at the trade-off but if we start claiming with a straight face that it's benign rather than a necessary evil we'll have lost something important.
While the complainant here might not have prevailed on the merits, his complaints about the spikiness of the interface were legitimate and should not have been met with defensive comments that sought to reflect the criticism back onto him.
I would agree that it is well worth pondering the nature of the interface
between the administrative pages (in the Wikipedia: namespace) and the "general public" who may wish to access them. I don't know any single onsite explanation of "processes" and "noticeboards" which would be a good starting point. Then I haven't looked for such a thing. A "main page" explaining the whole namespace looks like an inherently good idea (whether or not those who need it would find it).
That said, I deprecate getting "design" issues mixed up with others. The use of emotive terms such as cold and unfriendly implies things about intention and fault that aren't exactly helpful. I don't know whether arguing that WP is "sui generis" is defensive or not. I can think of several issues where it allows a reply like "you'd have more of a case if WP were ...", to fill in to taste with "staffed by paid workers"/"for profit"/"offering a different service"/"run on a billion dollar budget"/"Facebook", etc. These answers seem to me to offer analytical insight.
Charles