Kelly Martin wrote:
Unfortunately, the people in the bleachers seem unable to see us, and pretend that we're not actually doing anything.
Thanks for the support, though.
Maybe it's that the people in the bleachers are actually unable to see you? In which case, they're not pretending anything. And wouldn't treating sincere people as fakers make the situation worse?
Andrew Gray wrote:
Basically, the problem is not that we have people burning out by dealing with complaints; that's to be expected.
Not the whole problem, surely, but could that be part of the problem?
It seems to me like both Wikipedia as a whole and this list in specific have a hard time taking upset people very seriously. If they are outsiders, then they end up on the road to sanctions, moderation, and bans. If they are insiders, it's a different path, but still seems to lead to marginalization.
Taking that as a given for a moment, it seems like we guarantee permanent problems when we put editors in a situation that a) we don't hear much about, and b) leads to burnout.
I don't think we can change the dynamic, but could we get out of this by making the rot problems more visible, so that it's not just an unfortunate few who see the need to change?
William