True, we should care for newbies, but we should have the good of the project at number one. I can't find a single policy that we don't need (can you?). Policies we don't need probably won't get promoted to policy to begin with.
Even if you can't point to a policy page and say "we'd be better off if that whole page were deleted", it seems to me that after promotion to policy level, the process of annotating and expanding that policy happens slowly, under much less scrutiny, and at a much lower threshold of acceptance.
I have in mind WP:U. The general idea -- no offensive usernames -- may be good, but read all of the fine print that has accumulated over time. Do not think this is idle policy cruft that nobody acts upon. Newbies now get instantly and permanently blocked for what in my opinion are really stupid, arbitrary offences.
Perhaps WP:U is an extreme case, but I suspect something like this happens on many policy pages, and never mind guidelines.
Dan
On 9/5/06, dmehkeri@swi.com dmehkeri@swi.com wrote:
True, we should care for newbies, but we should have the good of the
project
at number one. I can't find a single policy that we don't need (can
you?).
Policies we don't need probably won't get promoted to policy to begin
with.
Even if you can't point to a policy page and say "we'd be better off if that whole page were deleted", it seems to me that after promotion to policy level, the process of annotating and expanding that policy happens slowly, under much less scrutiny, and at a much lower threshold of acceptance.
I have in mind WP:U. The general idea -- no offensive usernames -- may be good, but read all of the fine print that has accumulated over time. Do not think this is idle policy cruft that nobody acts upon. Newbies now get instantly and permanently blocked for what in my opinion are really stupid, arbitrary offences.
Perhaps WP:U is an extreme case, but I suspect something like this happens on many policy pages, and never mind guidelines.
Dan
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Ah, a great example of something where both policy and its practical implimentation are biting newbies.
At unblock-en-l we are getting a slow but steady stream of unblock requests (a few a week) of people who were username blocked. In most cases they don't understand why, because there wasn't nearly enough information left on their talk page at block time and there was no polite discussion prior to the block informing them of the policy and asking them to chose another name and use the name-shift functions to switch to it.
As a general rule, I think that unblock-en-l is getting an interesting view into newbie interactions with Wikipedia. One thing that concerns me is that it's hard to tell what fraction of people who should contact unblock-en-l actually do, as opposed to just walking away from the project. That could be a very high ratio and as far as I know we have no way to tell what it is.
If we exclude the well-known, work-in-progress AOL block problem, we see a slow steady stream of problem editors complaining about their latest block, innocent people caught in autoblocks on shared IP space, people who didn't think 3RR applied to them or didn't understand 3RR, and other minor issues.
The problem users are not particularly a problem worth otherwise addressing.
People caught in autoblocks on shared IP space seems to be high enough volume to be a potential real problem.
People who don't understand 3RR seems to be a possible big deal. It also comes up a few times a week. We may have a communications issue telling new users about it...
Oh yes, the Unblock mailing list has given me an interesting view on the interaction between newbies and admins who regularly block users ('Wikipedia says I was blocked for "user." What the heck is that and why I am being blocked?' is a fairly common complaint, along with the usual autoblocks and AOL collateral damage). I've also noted that most of us replying on the Unblock mailing list have used "customer service" language to a high degree.
On 9/5/06, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Ah, a great example of something where both policy and its practical implimentation are biting newbies.
At unblock-en-l we are getting a slow but steady stream of unblock requests (a few a week) of people who were username blocked. In most cases they don't understand why, because there wasn't nearly enough information left on their talk page at block time and there was no polite discussion prior to the block informing them of the policy and asking them to chose another name and use the name-shift functions to switch to it.
As a general rule, I think that unblock-en-l is getting an interesting view into newbie interactions with Wikipedia. One thing that concerns me is that it's hard to tell what fraction of people who should contact unblock-en-l actually do, as opposed to just walking away from the project. That could be a very high ratio and as far as I know we have no way to tell what it is.
If we exclude the well-known, work-in-progress AOL block problem, we see a slow steady stream of problem editors complaining about their latest block, innocent people caught in autoblocks on shared IP space, people who didn't think 3RR applied to them or didn't understand 3RR, and other minor issues.
The problem users are not particularly a problem worth otherwise addressing.
People caught in autoblocks on shared IP space seems to be high enough volume to be a potential real problem.
People who don't understand 3RR seems to be a possible big deal. It also comes up a few times a week. We may have a communications issue telling new users about it...
I do think that our username policy is handled very badly at times. People are blocked for offensiveness when the offensiveness is rather arguable; people are blocked for impersonation if they happen to pick a name that's close to an existing user; people are blocked for impersonating a well-known person when they're actually using their own real names. Very rarely is it explained properly; very rarely is the person given an opportunity to change their ID or to challenge the decision.
It seems that we constantly assume 'Vandal!' in this case.
-Matt
On 05/09/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
It seems that we constantly assume 'Vandal!' in this case.
How do we get across to the CVU that they can't vote amongst themselves to dispose of Assume Good Faith? Which is, ahh, a *policy*. Telling them they can't has had no effect.
- d.
On 9/5/06, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 05/09/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
It seems that we constantly assume 'Vandal!' in this case.
How do we get across to the CVU that they can't vote amongst themselves to dispose of Assume Good Faith? Which is, ahh, a *policy*. Telling them they can't has had no effect.
Well of course not because they will just cite WP:IAR. Then they could go on the argue that policy is descriptive not proscriptive and throw in the words "common sense" a few times.
Sorry sorry sorry.
On a more serious note you could try telling them why it is a bad idea and come up with alturnatives.
On 9/5/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Well of course not because they will just cite WP:IAR. Then they could go on the argue that policy is descriptive not proscriptive and throw in the words "common sense" a few times.
If anyone can justify, using "common sense" and "the good of the project", ignoring AGF, they deserve a prize.
On a more serious note you could try telling them why it is a bad idea and come up with alturnatives.
This is always a sensible way of doing things. :-)
On 9/5/06, Sam Korn smoddy@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/5/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
Well of course not because they will just cite WP:IAR. Then they could go on the argue that policy is descriptive not proscriptive and throw in the words "common sense" a few times.
If anyone can justify, using "common sense" and "the good of the project", ignoring AGF, they deserve a prize.
You don't phrase it like that. You talk about obvious cases and how we need the abilty to react faster (dig up the excuses for the various anti terriousm laws that have been brought in lately and apply). You talk about how it is nessacery to protect the project from those who wish to hurt it (at this point you may wish to insinate that those opposeing you support willy on wheels or lack determination in keeping wikipedia copyvio free)
Further you can add that those who oppose you have lost sight of the true goals of the project (useful since it is a pain to dissprove and pretty much forces your oponents onto the defensive)
It is really very simple.
This is always a sensible way of doing things. :-)
90% of the time it causes pointless time wasteing. The trick is knowing where that 10% is.
G'day David,
On 05/09/06, Matt Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
It seems that we constantly assume 'Vandal!' in this case.
How do we get across to the CVU that they can't vote amongst themselves to dispose of Assume Good Faith? Which is, ahh, a *policy*. Telling them they can't has had no effect.
I don't think username blocks is something we can blame CVU for.
CVU tends to stand for tolerance of bureaucratic nonsense, inexperience, unfamiliarity with the goals of Wikipedia, militarism, and general Cluelessness. All Bad Things, I agree, but they point to a completely different issue: the phenomenon is of users who don't know how Wikipedia works or should work but think they know better than the rest of us because of their CVU "experience".
The admins involved in CVU tend to be either, a) Clueful people who signed up for reasons which escape me but which I trust made sense to them; or b) the "CVU admins", who passed RfA on the strength of their perceived vandal-whacking ability but don't yet know what they're doing. In my experience, 'a' is no problem, and 'b' may be overly officious or process-oriented but don't go out of their way to set up Kafka-esque username traps[0] for newbies.
I'm more concerned[1] about longer-term admins who've become burnt out and decided they couldn't be bothered providing reasoning for exceeding their mandate.
[0] Excuse me, I had some leftover flowery rhetoric burning a hole in my literary pocket.
[1] In this specific case ...