Ron Ritzman wrote:
On 2/21/07, Parker Peters parkerpeters1002@gmail.com wrote:
It's not the obvious vandalism that's a problem, it's the number of people, growing every day, who see an article, try to fix it, and get whacked by an over-eager, over-egoed, over-caffeine-dosed admin who's lost the ability to distinguish from a real vandal and someone trying to [[Be Bold]] and fix a problem.
I can see two possible patterns a newbie editor can get into when trying to "fix" a "defended" article.
bold/revert/talk/shrug/go play elsewhere
bold/revert/bold/revert/bold/revert/go WTF on talk
page/bold/revert/bold/revert/ bold/revert/more dickery on talk page/block/sockpuppets/block/lather/rinse/repeat
As far as you know, have any of these innocent newbie editors drew the wrath of a "rogue admin" following pattern 1?
Ron,
Perhaps I'm misconstruing your point. Is your question rhetorical, or actually seeking information? Are you suggesting that, if a "newbie editor" were to simply walk away, there would be no problem?
IF that is what you're suggesting, then I seriously disagree with you. Sure, perhaps there would not be the more visible problem of revert wars, "dickery", sockpuppets, etc. But the less visible, but more insidious problem of an admin preventing valid work an a page would remain. A "bold edit" (as opposed to vandalism) should not simply be reverted. Yes, I may be guilty of doing this, but then I should be gently warned, and progressively less gently warned if I continue, until either more drastic action is required against me, or I mend my ways.
Of course, none of that is exclusive to admins. That's just standard, respectful behavior. But if the newbie has heard that one must be careful about admins, or one can get blocked, the "shrug and walk away" behavior is more likely, especially for the kind of newbie editors who would likely become productive editors. The boldness of the newbie editor is diminished (if not squashed entirely), and at least in some cases, the newbie may give up on the project entirely.
Meanwhile, the admin who reverted the newbie doesn't draw the attention of anyone else. You can't really call the admin "abusive", at least not intentionally. But from the point of view of the newbie, it could very easily seem like "there was this admin, who could ban me from the project, who refused to allow me to make changes to this page. I guess Wikipedia isn't as open to people editing as I thought they were. And those admins sure are a pain in the ass."
No complaints to anyone. Just a bad taste in a newbie's mouth. Successful businesses quickly learn that the real bad news isn't that your customers are complaining to you--the real bad news is when your customers aren't complaining to you but are disappointed, and are complaining to others.
-Rich