Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
Unfortunately, the way Wikipedia culture has evolved these days, there seems to be a large tendency to "cry for blood" all the time, and to conduct "troll hunts". There's an extremely vindictive, punitive attitude all around, and a belief that it's more important to protect the fragile egos of long-time Wikipedians than to try to be fair to newbies who may just be inept or frustrated rather than being the evil trolls they're often labeled as when they rub somebody the wrong way. Once somebody with some status on Wikipedia claims to be attacked, harrassed, stalked, or otherwise bothered by somebody with lesser status, it's all over for them... everybody else circles their wagons and has no interest in hearing the other side of the dispute (and there are *always* at least two sides to any dispute).
Interesting that you should analyse this in terms of a person's status. Generally people who really do have status are secure in that status don't need to engage in this kind of behaviour. I think it mostly come from those who have a very limited and fragile view of Wikipedia. The transition from the limited scope of these people depends on being able to move from judging Wikipedia activity on the basis of rules to judging that activity on the basis of principles. For the rule-minded "Ignore all rules" is an outrage; for the principle minded it is an opportunity for developing new ideas.
This list is perhaps a bit more of a tolerant zone than Wikipedia itself these days, but still sometimes sees similar behavior, though the ability to make somebody an "unperson" by deleting their posts before anybody can read them at least doesn't exist.
I agree. Maybe its because we have a critical mass of experienced people who have an appreciation of these dynamics. We certainly have our share of hardliners, but there are enough other opinions here so that the hardliners can't draw the conclusion that silence is consent. This is not possible on Wikipedia itself. When a newbie is criticised there he is not in an easy position to question that criticism; he doesn't know whether the critic has been there five years or five days. In theory he could check that out, but that's unrealistic for a newbie who is just becoming familiar with basic wiki markup. If such a newbie is referred to rules, which are wikis themselves, he can't know about the background of that rule and the degree of support that it has in the community.
Ec