From: "Charles Matthews" charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com
The community writes the 'pedia. A 'great' community is actually quite well characterised by its attitude to joiners. Particularly, here, newbies with other Internet experience who have something to say but are over-assertive and edit 'in the wrong register'.
To join and be part of a community, you have to abide by its norms. Those who fail to do so generally face exclusion from the community of one form or another. And I find Wikipedia extremely reluctant to use the tools it has to enfore communal norms, to its detriment. Some of the detriment is seen in the highly variable quality of the content. Other is seen in the many good editors willing to abide by those norms, but not put up with those who do not, and who end up leaving.
Jay.