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Sage Ross

18 Sep 2009 18 Sep '09

1:36 p.m.

This isn't a new issue by any means, but here's a nice post by someone who's been contributing occasionally since 2004, about how daunting "wikibullying" can be for newbies and other editors who aren't well-versed in the procedures and processes. http://travel-industry.uptake.com/blog/2009/09/04/bullypedia-a-wikipedian-w… Unfriendliness is built into the system, even when admins and others who enforce the rules are perfectly civil and try to be friendly at an individual level. -Sage

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Amory Meltzer

18 Sep 18 Sep

3:02 p.m.

I wouldn't exactly call that post "nice." It reads to me like just another person complaining. The argument that an article about a non-profit can't be an advertisement is absurd. I recognize that NPPs should on the whole be nicer to submissions from newer users, but the overwhelming majority of speedily deleted articles deserve to be so. I don't understand why anyone would feel so entitled about a submission to what is essentially somebody else's website. ~A On Friday, September 18, 2009, Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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-- ~A

Carcharoth

3:14 p.m.

A good way to test friendliness is to edit logged out or from an alternative IP, or as a new account (but avoid breaching experiments), and see if your contributions get treated any differently. I've heard from numerous people that there is resistance to new editing and biting behaviour going on, rather than welcomes and encouragement for new editors learning the ropes. Rather than get defensive, working towards making the NPP culture more friendly and less bureaucratic for new editors, would be better. It is a balance between efficiently working through new page patrol (NPP) and not scaring off new editors who may develop into good editors, and who may be quite happy for others to take their edits and improve them (but don't want them just thrown away). Carcharoth On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 4:02 PM, Amory Meltzer <amorymeltzer(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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-- ~A _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Emily Monroe

7:47 p.m.

...

It is a balance between efficiently working through new page patrol (NPP) and not scaring off new editors who may develop into good editors, and who may be quite happy for others to take their edits and improve them (but don't want them just thrown away).

I, on occasion, will improve an article while on NPP. Sometimes I do so before tagging it for deletion (often the page is tagged for deletion while I'm editing it, resulting in an edit conflict). I think this is a good idea. Sometimes I figure out, via edit conflict, that the person is still editing the article. I just put up an {{inuse}} tag and move on. Maybe we can make up a rule that says "Unless the page was obvisouly written in bad faith, you have to improve upon it before tagging it for speedy or prod deletion. Otherwise, your nomination will be rejected." Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 10:14 AM, Carcharoth wrote:

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wrote: This isn't a new issue by any means, but here's a nice post by someone who's been contributing occasionally since 2004, about how daunting "wikibullying" can be for newbies and other editors who aren't well-versed in the procedures and processes. http://travel-industry.uptake.com/blog/2009/09/04/bullypedia-a-wikipedian-w… Unfriendliness is built into the system, even when admins and others who enforce the rules are perfectly civil and try to be friendly at an individual level. -Sage _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

_______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Charles Matthews

3:19 p.m.

Amory Meltzer wrote:

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I wouldn't exactly call that post "nice." It reads to me like just another person complaining.

David Goodman

3:47 p.m.

" the overwhelming majority of speedily deleted articles deserve to be so." -- yes, so they do. But of the people who contribute them, many can be encouraged to learn how to write adequate articles and perhaps become regular contributors. People who write inadequate unsourced promotional articles can be simply rejected, or alternatively helped to write good ones or at least realize and understand why their topic is unsuitable and respect us for our standards. If one out of ten respond favorably to our endeavors, we'll gain 100 good contributors a day. What is required is the patience to deal properly with all of them, although only a minority will respond as we would like them to. That minority is a lot of people, and we need them. It is worth a day's effort, to rescue for us one contributor and possibly their article. It's not the articles we need, as much as the contributors, with the possibility of interesting them in working on other ones also. All comments at wikipedia that include the phrase "just another " ignore the possibility of working with the individuals. There may be common types of bad articles, but each has a person behind it, and there are no people who are "just another" David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 11:19 AM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

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Amory Meltzer wrote:

I wouldn't exactly call that post "nice." It reads to me like just another person complaining.

Actually this is not so much an example on bullying, but on _precisely_ why we have WP:COI. The hill has "five rope tows and seven ski runs". Is this an encyclopedic topic? Not really. If someone has no personal stake in [[Kettlebowl]], they will no doubt take the line that it hardly matters whether it is in Wikipedia or not. If they do, they will take every attempt to delete in line with guidelines as a personal affront. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Carcharoth

3:58 p.m.

Oh, please post this somewhere where it will be more widely read! What you said makes the relevant points so well and so clearly. But maybe frame it as "increasing participation in Wikipedia", rather than "changing the unfriendly culture"? Carcharoth On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 4:47 PM, David Goodman <dgoodmanny(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Amory Meltzer wrote:

I wouldn't exactly call that post "nice." It reads to me like just another person complaining.

Charles Matthews

4:18 p.m.

David Goodman wrote:

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OK, I have been doing a lot of speedy patrol since the topic last came up on the list. Initially I was interested to see if one became punch-drunk by intensive sessions (not too bad, in fact). I now have some feeling for statistics. The one that matters most to me is that something of the order of 2% of speedy nominations are just cleanup cases (sometimes extreme, but not nonsense as often tagged). Very largely these are of Asian origin. I think we might all agree that the "market for Wikipedians" in (anglophone) Asia is nothing like saturated. The next number that occurs to me is that perhaps 5% of speedy deletion generate queries. You can see them on my usertalk, where most are better than the "Thanks alot jerkoff!" section. They all need an accurate answer that is also reasonably helpful. Note that the more polite queries tend to be from "spam"-type deletion taggings. The assumption is that helping people who really are trying to get their company or product a Wikipedia page is part of the job if you patrol CSD. Well, I agree with that but it consumes time. My own feelings are that the "presentist" bias of submissions is a terrible skewing of the encyclopedia idea, but I quite see that this should never enter my admin work. David's argument seems to need shading: an editor who is only really interested in creating a company or product article may not become a general-purpose Wikipedian. But of course he or she may, and we just don't know. (It's the old argument about advertising being mostly wasted money, and the argument is valid here.) Charles

David Goodman

4:32 p.m.

Most of the ones doing a single article won't be. Suppose one in five of them did? But even apart from general purpose editors I've seen some move on to do articles on their industry in general, and not biased ones either, or fix technical errors in other related articles. That it's difficult, certainly--I devote about half my wiki-time to it, and I typically can deal with 5 a week. Suppose 200 of us did even one a week? That's 10,000 editors a year helped, and 2,000 of them becoming generally active. Things which look hopelessly daunting for a single person, are much less so if many people join in doing it, which is why Wikipedia works in the first lpace. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 12:18 PM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

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David Goodman wrote: > " the overwhelming majority of speedily deleted articles deserve to be > so." -- yes, so they do. But of the people who contribute them, many > can be encouraged to learn how to write adequate articles and perhaps > become regular contributors. People who write inadequate unsourced > promotional articles can be simply rejected, or alternatively helped > to write good ones or at least realize and understand why their topic > is unsuitable and respect us for our standards. If one out of ten > respond favorably to our endeavors, we'll gain 100 good contributors a > day.

k. David's argument seems to need

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shading: an editor who is only really interested in creating a company or product article may not become a general-purpose Wikipedian. But of course he or she may, and we just don't know. (It's the old argument about advertising being mostly wasted money, and the argument is valid here.) Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

Emily Monroe

8:17 p.m.

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The one that matters most to me is that something of the order of 2% of speedy nominations are just cleanup cases (sometimes extreme, but not nonsense as often tagged).

I assume you're an admin, and have the power to speedily delete. Do you actually clean up the article instead of deleting? If so, THANK YOU SO MUCH!

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The next number that occurs to me is that perhaps 5% of speedy deletion generate queries. You can see them on my usertalk, where most are better than the "Thanks alot jerkoff!" section. They all need an accurate answer that is also reasonably helpful.

True. The more somebody doesn't know the social norms of an environment, the more times you have to remind them of such and help them out.

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Note that the more polite queries tend to be from "spam"-type deletion taggings. The assumption is that helping people who really are trying to get their company or product a Wikipedia page is part of the job if you patrol CSD. Well, I agree with that but it consumes time.

Yeah, it does seem to me that the more "spammy" the article, the more likely the person simply doesn't know of Wikipedia's COI, spam, and notability requirements. It's not that they are writing in bad faith, they really don't know that, for example, just because their competitor has written an article doesn't mean that they should write an article about their own company. Sad, really.

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The assumption is that helping people who really are trying to get their company or product a Wikipedia page is part of the job if you patrol CSD. Well, I agree with that but it consumes time.

Perhaps the main obstacle in helping someone is the time consumption. Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 11:18 AM, Charles Matthews wrote:

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David Goodman wrote:

Charles Matthews

19 Sep 19 Sep

10:25 a.m.

Emily Monroe wrote:

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Getting back to the initial complainant: http://howwikipediaworks.com/ch10.html covers all sorts of things that are also not well known generally, but probably cannot so easily be found on the site. For example, bot edits were (a more ranty) part of the complaint, and they are dealt with in that discussion. That book chapter has no official status at all, of course: but in comparison the suite of policy pages and help pages is unambitious in actually explaining how the system functions, in the round. There is a proper distinction to be made between "user-friendliness" and simple "friendliness", of course, but it doesn't seem entirely helpful to have two separate discussions going on, one on "usability" at Foundation level, and another on "the community" as self-criticism on the enWP level, without some sort of model of this "life cycle" kind in the background. Charles

Emily Monroe

18 Sep 18 Sep

8:06 p.m.

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But of the people who contribute them, many can be encouraged to learn how to write adequate articles and perhaps become regular contributors. People who write inadequate unsourced promotional articles can be simply rejected, or alternatively helped to write good ones or at least realize and understand why their topic is unsuitable and respect us for our standards.

But how?

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It's not the articles we need, as much as the contributors, with the possibility of interesting them in working on other ones also.

True, true. I'd pick another contributor over another article any day. Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 10:47 AM, David Goodman wrote:

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Amory Meltzer wrote:

I wouldn't exactly call that post "nice." It reads to me like just another person complaining.

Surreptitiousness

21 Sep 21 Sep

10:47 a.m.

Charles Matthews wrote:

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Amory Meltzer wrote:

I wouldn't exactly call that post "nice." It reads to me like just another person complaining.

Actually this is not so much an example on bullying, but on _precisely_ why we have WP:COI. The hill has "five rope tows and seven ski runs". Is this an encyclopedic topic? Not really.

It depends on your definition, doesn't it. We've never really got to an accepted definition, [[WP:N]] is the closest we've come but that's widely ignored by a vast number of contributors whose voice we have somehow managed to disenfranchise. There are also two schools of thought on what to do with this sort of content, we can either delete it or present it as best we can. Are we looking to be Britannica for the web, or are we looking to do a little bit more. Early on there was a consensus that Wikipedia wasn't paper, but that's been reined in by people who point to things and say, you wouldn't find that in Britannica. I can't help but feel we wouldn't have come as far as we have if the mission statement had been something like "replicating the stuff you get in Britannica but just being a little more timely in updating". I'd really like some decent surveys conducted which let us know exactly what our users and readers want us to be, because without that, we're just blowing hot-air. We've lost the idea that our readers can let us know what is missing by starting new articles, because we enforce standards that don't reflect that given reader's concerns. Yes, there's the obvious argument that if we adopted the standards of the most edits, we'd allow vandalism, but that's not the real debate, it's just a snappy sound bite. The real issue is what sort of resource we really are. I think the writer of the essay has a real point when they say "Wikipedia is dead – the Britannica staff has taken over."

Charles Matthews

12:04 p.m.

Surreptitiousness wrote:

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We've lost the idea that our readers can let us know what is missing by starting new articles, because we enforce standards that don't reflect that given reader's concerns. Yes, there's the obvious argument that if we adopted the standards of the most edits, we'd allow vandalism, but that's not the real debate, it's just a snappy sound bite. The real issue is what sort of resource we really are. I think the writer of the essay has a real point when they say "Wikipedia is dead – the Britannica staff has taken over."

I think that goes too far. I would argue that, yes, we have had to find a replacement for the editorial processes applied by EB and (for example) Nupedia. What we have not done is to prescribe these in advance of launching the project: we have allowed matters to develop their own way (for example, three flavours of deletion, rather than someone just nixing a topic). These days there tend to be around 100 articles waiting at CSD, a few of which shouldn't be there. AfD can give the wrong result. Systemic bias is by no means vanquished. But the complaint that there is some sort of editorial process, and that submissions should still be on a "no one needs to read the instructions" basis (no drafting, in particular), is a basic misunderstanding. Charles

Carcharoth

12:13 p.m.

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 1:04 PM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

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Surreptitiousness wrote:

Maybe it should be: "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit (but please read the manual first and check what sort of articles we want, and please talk politely to our volunteer editors and realise that it can take time to understand how things work around here)"? I *hope* the links from the taglines lead to pages that tell people that. Carcharoth

Surreptitiousness

1:25 p.m.

Charles Matthews wrote:

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I think that goes too far. I would argue that, yes, we have had to find a replacement for the editorial processes applied by EB and (for example) Nupedia.

But wasn't the wiki process supposed to be the editorial process?

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What we have not done is to prescribe these in advance of launching the project: we have allowed matters to develop their own way

But I think it is fair to say that there is resistance to changing the current status quo such that it could be argued that further evolution is unwelcome. For way of example, a fairly recent discussion suggested [[WP:PLOT]] lacked the consensus required to remain a policy. However, a handful of editors refused attempts to remove it. This doesn't support the view that matters are allowed to develop, but rather supports the view that there are gate keepers. Incidentally, I've been informed on three policy pages recently that gate keepers are actually part of the wiki process, and that our policies should have established gate keepers as they will best understand which changes will be in keeping with the general thrust of the policy they undertake to gate keep.

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But the complaint that there is some sort of editorial process, and that submissions should still be on a "no one needs to read the instructions" basis (no drafting, in particular), is a basic misunderstanding.

I don't think it is, I really do not. I think there is a basic misunderstanding on both sides of the argument, because there are people out there crafting policies or arguing that there should be gate keepers and that there actually does exist some sort of editorial process. Many established editors have or have a belief that they operate as a part of that process, and that their opinion is actually definitive.

Charles Matthews

3:43 p.m.

Surreptitiousness wrote:

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Charles Matthews wrote:

I think that goes too far. I would argue that, yes, we have had to find a replacement for the editorial processes applied by EB and (for example) Nupedia.

But wasn't the wiki process supposed to be the editorial process?

If you mean the really-old-school pre-2001 wiki process, it was not so much a process as people raking a Zen garden, or water gently lapping at a sea-shore, or something. Anyway without any structure. Not what we would recognise, in fact. If you mean the Wikipedia-before-beard-tugging process, I think this is one of those never-was-a-golden-age discussions. What we have had to find is some replacement for a ratchet in an inherently ratchet-free environment. Two steps forward and then one back is not really "serious" enough for a site with over 300 million readers. (Well, OK, not all reading enWP, but that's the ballpark.)

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What we have not done is to prescribe these in advance of launching the project: we have allowed matters to develop their own way

But I think it is fair to say that there is resistance to changing the current status quo such that it could be argued that further evolution is unwelcome.

There is always now frictional resistance to change, quite true.

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For way of example, a fairly recent discussion suggested [[WP:PLOT]] lacked the consensus required to remain a policy. However, a handful of editors refused attempts to remove it. This doesn't support the view that matters are allowed to develop, but rather supports the view that there are gate keepers. Incidentally, I've been informed on three policy pages recently that gate keepers are actually part of the wiki process, and that our policies should have established gate keepers as they will best understand which changes will be in keeping with the general thrust of the policy they undertake to gate keep.

"We have already decided that" is no part of any wiki process. Aiming to be consistent over multifarious bits of Wikipedia is part of our way of doing things. Obviously there is a tension.

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To go back, if you think this couldn't exist in old-style wikis, you would be wrong (in my experience). That kind of inflexibility is a people issue you would find anywhere (particularly in voluntary organisations, again in my experience). To get back to the complainant, I'll say this. If I had a friend (and I have been asked exactly this) who has an idea for a Wikipedia article on a topic of immediate personal interest, what would I advise? I'd say "edit the site generally for three months, before trying to edit on anything you really care about". This is nothing new: I felt this five years ago. I think this is the right advice. Sure, the USP is "you can edit this site right now". I think the intelligent reaction is "it can't be that simple, surely" and that is also true: it is easy to edit and make changes, which can be edited right back. Of course the "not-so-newbie" in question still complains of being bitten, but as I've said previously in the thread, the treatment in the form of requests to upgrade the article is not accurately described as "bullying". Charles

Carcharoth

3:51 p.m.

On Mon, Sep 21, 2009 at 4:43 PM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote: <snip>

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To get back to the complainant, I'll say this. If I had a friend (and I have been asked exactly this) who has an idea for a Wikipedia article on a topic of immediate personal interest, what would I advise? I'd say "edit the site generally for three months, before trying to edit on anything you really care about". This is nothing new: I felt this five years ago. I think this is the right advice. Sure, the USP is "you can edit this site right now". I think the intelligent reaction is "it can't be that simple, surely" and that is also true: it is easy to edit and make changes, which can be edited right back.

Ooh look! Something else to frame for a quote-wall! :-) One problem is that most people start editing on things they care about. When people get in trouble for their conduct on some articles, the standard advice is (or should be) to calm down, walk away, and if you want to edit, do so in another area. Carcharoth

David Gerard

12:10 p.m.

2009/9/21 Surreptitiousness <surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com>om>:

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I'd really like some decent surveys conducted which let us know exactly what our users and readers want us to be, because without that, we're just blowing hot-air.

+1 Suggest this on the strategy wiki.

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We've lost the idea that our readers can let us know what is missing by starting new articles, because we enforce standards that don't reflect that given reader's concerns.

And don't even let them create the article they're looking for unless they create a login and come back four days later. - d.

Surreptitiousness

1:16 p.m.

New subject: survey

David Gerard wrote:

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2009/9/21 Surreptitiousness <surreptitious.wikipedian(a)googlemail.com>om>:

I'd really like some decent surveys conducted which let us know exactly what our users and readers want us to be, because without that, we're just blowing hot-air.

+1 Suggest this on the strategy wiki.

Rough start at http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposal:Survey_our_readers_as_to_what_t… feel free to edit and improve, of course.

Steve Bennett

22 Sep 22 Sep

4:56 a.m.

On Sat, Sep 19, 2009 at 1:19 AM, Charles Matthews <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com> wrote:

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The hill has "five rope tows and seven ski runs". Is this an encyclopedic topic? Not really.

Hmm. I've written about quite a few ski resorts (Broken River, Craigieburn Valley, Fox Peak, Invincible Snowfields, Mount Dobson, Mount Lyford, Porters, Rainbow, Snow Park, Mount Cheeseman, Temple Basin, Mount Olympus Ski Area, Mount Potts, Roundhill Ski Area, Hanmer Springs Ski Area, Mount Robert, Manganui), many of which are of the size you describe or even smaller. In Australia and New Zealand, the easiest rule is to just declare them all notable, because there are so few. But if you did that in France, for example, you might have a thousand or more. But you question whether it's even encyclopedic. Apply the specialist encyclopaedia test: would a specialist encyclopaedia about skiing in North America list this ski area? It ought to. So the answer is yes. Steve

Charles Matthews

8:18 a.m.

Steve Bennett wrote:

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But you question whether it's even encyclopedic. Apply the specialist encyclopaedia test: would a specialist encyclopaedia about skiing in North America list this ski area? It ought to. So the answer is yes.

Hmm, could be wrong, here's a webpage says "Kettlebowl: World’s Greatest Family Ski Hill". Oh, no, look who wrote that though ... I don't ski. You are partly arguing that there should not be a notability guideline for skiing sites. And partly that a specialist skiing encyclopedia should be a directory of just about all skiing sites. I'm not really in a position to argue, since I'm not familiar with that sector of reference literature. The usual test is that there is such a book and it does include Kettlebowl. I would certainly argue that - Kettlebowl the hill as geographic feature is probably a topic to include, just that it should be treated as such without the promotional overlay this guy wants about it; - If the material on Kettlebowl had been placed in [[Bryant, Wisconsin]], we would have had one better article, not two scrappy ones. I think skiing fans should not be allowed to chip away at minimum standards for inclusion just because they are, well, fans of skiing. WP:NOT says WP is not a directory, after all. Charles <http://www.uptake.com/blog/family_vacations/kettlebowl-worlds-greatest-family-ski-hill_1930.html>

Emily Monroe

18 Sep 18 Sep

7:59 p.m.

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The argument that an article about a non-profit can't be an advertisement is absurd.

Well, yeah. Non-profits can advertise as well. They have that right, if done in the proper place. The difference between a for-profit and non-profit corporations is non-profits, at least in spirit, aren't supposed to make any money. Advertising sometimes *cost* money. Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 10:02 AM, Amory Meltzer wrote:

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Emily Monroe

7:32 p.m.

I'm going to contribute to this thread "backwards", replying first to this message and then replying to other peoples' reply. I hope other people don't mind at all.

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here's a nice post by someone who's been contributing occasionally since 2004, about how daunting "wikibullying" can be for newbies and other editors who aren't well-versed in the procedures and processes.

I ask again. Is there any way at all to make Wikipedia less daunting? I wandered over once to a non-English Wikipedia. I forget which language it was in, Portuguese maybe. The universal sign for disability (the wheelchair stick figure) and a cognate for "accessibility" was right there *on the front page*.

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Unfriendliness is built into the system, even when admins and others who enforce the rules are perfectly civil and try to be friendly at an individual level.

I personally try to be friendly. I do. Other people have noted this in the past. It's, ultimately, the system that's so unfriendly. I can't help but notice that the author of this article keeps trying to add articles that aren't to our standards. Maybe make people who are writing their first (or second, or third, if the first or second is deleted) article go through the article wizard? That way, some (or perhaps all) of his articles would've eventually been deleted, but at least they would've been sourced and at least somewhat of a NPOV? Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 8:36 AM, Sage Ross wrote:

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Carcharoth

7:49 p.m.

On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Emily Monroe <bluecaliocean(a)me.com> wrote: <snip>

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I can't help but notice that the author of this article keeps trying to add articles that aren't to our standards. Maybe make people who are writing their first (or second, or third, if the first or second is deleted) article go through the article wizard? That way, some (or perhaps all) of his articles would've eventually been deleted, but at least they would've been sourced and at least somewhat of a NPOV?

It's not the article that matters here - others can come along and tidy it up later. What matters here is getting people started off on the right footing, and explaining things to them. Forcing someone to go through an article wizard is a "one size fits all" solution. The best approach, in nearly all cases, is personal and friendly interaction, helping people improve. When you say not to our standards, are you expecting a minimum standard from new editors? If so, then the problem goes all the way back to this: "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." That gets people excited when they realise it is true. They really *can* edit it. Imagine the let-down they feel when they discover that actually, there are loads of good and bad checks and balances in place that actually make contributing quite difficult. And of the two articles mentioned, Kettlebowl seems OK for what it is, and the other one is fine as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raptor_Education_Group_Inc. Carcharoth

Emily Monroe

7:57 p.m.

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When you say not to our standards, are you expecting a minimum standard from new editors?

Yeah, I do. I believe this helps them acclimate to the Wikipedia community. Like I've said previously, I often edit articles *before* tagging for deletion. These articles are usually written by people not familiar with Wikimarkup, or people not even familiar with English, period.

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Imagine the let-down they feel when they discover that actually, there are loads of good and bad checks and balances in place that actually make contributing quite difficult.

I do imagine they feel let-down. Most if not nearly all the articles I tag for speedy deletion are by barely autoconfirmed people with hardly any edits at all. They just jumped right in the deep end and most of the time, they drown. I think there needs to be two levels of auto- confirmed, the "You aren't Willy on wheels" confirmed, and "You can probably write a non-speedyable article" confirmed. Is there any way to take out the bad checks and balances without also taking out the good as well? Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 2:49 PM, Carcharoth wrote:

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On Fri, Sep 18, 2009 at 8:32 PM, Emily Monroe <bluecaliocean(a)me.com> wrote: <snip>

stevertigo

8:12 p.m.

Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:

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Unfriendliness is built into the system, even when admins and others who enforce the rules are perfectly civil and try to be friendly at an individual level.

Hm. We can change that. "Wiki" wont do it. Nor will "Wikimedia" for that matter. But "collaboration" will. I'll write up a new policy. -Stevertigo

Emily Monroe

9:43 p.m.

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We can change that. "Wiki" wont do it. Nor will "Wikimedia" for that matter. But "collaboration" will..

I agree 100%. Emily On Sep 18, 2009, at 3:12 PM, stevertigo wrote:

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Sage Ross <ragesoss+wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:

Unfriendliness is built into the system, even when admins and others who enforce the rules are perfectly civil and try to be friendly at an individual level.

Hm. We can change that. "Wiki" wont do it. Nor will "Wikimedia" for that matter. But "collaboration" will. I'll write up a new policy. -Stevertigo _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l

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Amory Meltzer
Carcharoth
Charles Matthews
David Gerard
David Goodman
Emily Monroe
Sage Ross
Steve Bennett
stevertigo
Surreptitiousness