Hi Sumana,
[CCing the English Wikipedia mailing list].
sorry for the late response.
On Fri, 08 Feb 2013 08:03:11 -0500
Sumana Harihareswara <sumanah(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/2013-02-07
Yesterday I gave a 3-minute presentation about the Outreach Program for
Women at the monthly Wikimedia Foundation all-hands meeting. My slides
are up on Commons:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Opw-presentation-feb7-2013.pdf
More about our participation in OPW:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Outreach_Program_for_Women
Thanks for making the slides available, but I was annoyed by the fact that I
had to switch to every page individually, and could not figure out a way to
download the .pdf itself (but there should be). Your talk seems like a good
initiative, and I will encourage it.
Like I said earlier, I think part of the problem is that many people
(predominantly women, but naturally not only those) have very thin skin and
lack persistence and will give up after every social obstacle they encounter.
So what I suggest is:
1. Make sure to phrase the issues you have using constructive criticism,
telling what should be done instead of what is wrong. Leave comments on the
page, etc.
2. Make sure to contact the person who did the change and instruct them that
there is a problem, even using E-mail if necessary.
3. Tell people that have not followed this to have to know better and come to
the defence of people who are trying to contribute.
4. Thanks contributors of worthy changes (even small ones) for their changes on
their talk pages.
5. Enlighten people whose changes have been labelled as bad as to the correct
way.
6. Avoid mentioning too many acronyms and weird jargon in your comments, and
instead explain in plain English.
-----
All of this seems like much more work, but it will eventually pay in spades in
much less resentment and less hard feelings, more contributors, better happiness
and joy from all parties, and eventually much more useful edits.
I think we should change the templates on wikipedia to read
something more like “Please find citations from reliable sources for this
article.” instead of the much less constructive and more frightening “This
article lacks citations from reliable sources. It may be challenged and
removed.”.
Does anyone agree?
Regards,
Shlomi Fish
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Shlomi Fish
http://www.shlomifish.org/
"Humanity" - Parody of Modern Life -
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_helps_those_who_help_themselves
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