Daniel R. Tobias schrieb:
There's an extremely vindictive, punitive attitude all around,
My imaginary dividing line...
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.
I think you're mixing up two points that *should* be very distinct. Not saying the latter is or isn't at all true, but it's somewhat drama-related and shouldn't obscure from far more serious issues, which your first point happens to touch on.
I could go into several examples, but to keep it simple (and redudancy-free, so I don't get *moderated* (see, this is on-topic as can be...)) I'll stick to one particular thing that has recently struck me as, well, somewhat strange:
Why (oh why) is the very important NPOV section (which newbies, as well as regulars in the trenches are often pointed to) WP:UNDUE called *UN*due weight? Why not *Due weight*? Why the forbidding tone? Could it be that some really enjoy employing negative language instead of being positive?
Telling another editor, newbie or not, that things must *not* be given *un*due weight strikes me as totally arbitrary in its negativeness. Shouldn't the tendency rather be to *help* others to see what is the most useful apporach and to *motivate* to give due weight to the relevant aspects and to describe them what is *best practice* instead of what is *bad* and *forbidden* etc?
I'm writing here because in my opinion, the two most misunderstood and most widely ignored and even misused sections of NPOV, WP:ASF and WP:DUE (both are redirects I recently created), should be carefully reworded for clarity and positiveness.
I figured since previous attempts at doing (undoable and imo unnecessary) complete rewrites of NPOV appear to have ended in what might be called <s>cl*st*rf*cks</s> group hugs, we might as well get over with it before anyone starts building up false hope for the better.
So I'd like to invite anyone to weigh in on the discussion at WT:NPOV. There's only drama if you want it to be there.
Adrian