* James D. Forrester wrote:
Charles was replying to you saying that the
"neighbourhood is going to
hell" due to too much power being given over to sysops and not enough to
the community at large; I fail to see how highly distasteful (and
illegal) off-wiki activity by banned users is of any relevance. Can we
not get yet further distracted?
I was suggesting that PART of the reason for the excessive hatred directed
at Wikipedia and the admin community in particular are the actions of some
admins. The original poster said that a lost Wikipedia user can also be a
new anti-Wikipedia crusader. They're right. Obviously there will always be
people who are dis-satisfied and disruptive. But the fact is that we
sometimes go out of our way to antagonize them and it only makes things
worse. Wikipedia is becoming more and more a battleground (does anyone
disagree with that assessment?)... and in part that is because we no
longer treat the 'problem' users with as much respect as we once did. They
cause problems... sooner or later someone comes along and stomps them...
and instead of slowly learning to fit in or drifting away with mildly bad
feelings they gain an intense hatred of Wikipedia or those they see as the
'abusers'. It's a problem we are contributing to and ought to make more
concerted efforts to avoid.