Matthew Brown wrote:
On Fri, Feb 13, 2009 at 6:42 PM, Ian Woollard ian.woollard@gmail.com wrote:
Another issue that admins are quite prone to (along with many seasoned editors) is that they tend to get *really* overprotective of articles.
Very true, and I suspect most people will get all protective of an article they've put a lot of time into. The other half of the problem is that edits from a new user who just happens along are often bad, stylistically at least, and thus easy to respond negatively to even if they have a good point inelegantly expressed.
-Matt
My take is that we have two types of well-meaning editor- those who understand our policies and guidelines (including MOS), and those who don't. The former are adept at creating good content through practice, the latter may need educating, and this is normally done through templated messages, the first level of which assumes good faith; however, it is often easier when time is short to revert with an edit summary of "unsourced", "irrelevant" or something equally blunt. Again, in my experience, very few "unsophisticated" (and this is not meant to be an insult) editors complain, because they edit and move on. Those who do should be directed to guidelines, but it becomes tiresome when they just don't (or won't) "get it". The overhead of this detracts from creation of good content; not helpful to newbies, perhaps, but I think this is how it is seen.