On 11 December 2011 14:13, Tony Sidaway <tonysidaway(a)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