Could we all just agree that we will all work to promote a good atmosphere, in whatever aspect of WP we are involved? Maybe this sounds too like WikiLove soft soap; but surely it defines what the aim is. I find quite a contrast between folk who use words like 'stupid' in edit summaries, and those who find something pleasant to say; and that is not so related to their Wikipedian productivity. A culture of mutual recognition and support is what it's about. Charles

Denni wrote: I might try to clarify anything you "don't get", but I'm afraid you'll have to come down to a level where we can communicate. English is not my native language! Things like this: are incomprehensible to common folk such as myself. :-p Additionally, I would be grateful if you would reply to the relevant message next time, to keep it within the proper thread. Thank you. This is significantly different from what I was referring to. It is already technically possible for us to count the number of contributions (I even keep an approximate value on my user page updated). However, it is clear to everyone, troll or not, that these numbers don't mean anything. Anyone can make tens of thousands of edits; the system does not judge how meaningful each edit is. And *that* is where the problem comes in. By giving awards to people, we would be *judging the value* of a contribution. And we're bound to go horribly wrong. We're going to be biased against obscure topics that nobody finds interesting; we're going to be biased towards people who have been here for longer and whom we already appreciate; and we're going to be biased against people who are not quite as socially competent as we would like them to be. You already mentioned that we are here for the fun of it. Yes, of course we are. Who's denying that? The problem with these awards is that each award makes *one* person happy, and a *load* of people unhappy. It is simply no fun to see other people receive awards for something you personally feel you have done better, more of, or to a greater degree/extent. People are inevitably going to feel that way. It is well possible that some people are different, but I think the majority would *feel* (not think!) that way, no matter how hard you try to say to yourself that you *should* be happy for other people when they receive a reward and you don't. It only gets worse over time as you are continually denied a reward. People are *much* more likely to become demotivated and gradually (not explicitly!) leave in frustration (and they may not even be consciously aware that they are leaving *because* they have been denied a reward, even if that is the case!), than they are to work *even* harder for something they feel they're already entitled to. I tend to agree with this. We'd just have to work on being more welcoming. Things like what prompted James Marshall to post here about being reverted and blocked, simply should not happen. Newbies make a few mistakes because they are not aware of all our customs, policies, conventions, rules, taboos, etc. The problem is that this automatically makes them unpopular. Inventing rewards for our long-time contributors is not going to fix that (quite to the contrary, it might even make some awardees feel *even* more superior to "those pesky newbies"). Some of the rules we have seem unwelcoming to newbies. Unfortunately, we can't easily find out which ones they are, because all we ever see from a person that is driven away by such a rule, is a single edit from an anonymous IP adress; usually even one that is waved off as "vandalism" and reverted. We see more from the people who rebel against the rules, and these people are not representative of those that have left. If we were to introduce these awards, those that have left quickly are unlikely to even take notice of the fact that we are awarding something, so it's not going to make them stay. Timwi