I like the new idea of a "mentor" better than the old idea of "this guy needs to be banned".
I suggest that mentors apply a 7-to-1 ratio of praise to criticism. That is, "I liked this" "That was good" "Thanks for mentioning X", etc. seven times, followed by "Oops! That's not how we do it" once.
"Uncle" Ed Poor
I think the mentoring idea smacks of elitism. "We're better than you, and this is how you should do things." Zoe "Poor, Edmund W" Edmund.W.Poor@abc.com wrote:I like the new idea of a "mentor" better than the old idea of "this guy needs to be banned".
I suggest that mentors apply a 7-to-1 ratio of praise to criticism. That is, "I liked this" "That was good" "Thanks for mentioning X", etc. seven times, followed by "Oops! That's not how we do it" once.
"Uncle" Ed Poor _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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All helping and supporting relationships have that possibility, but sometimes help and support are appropriate. Reverting or deleting someone's work and calling it nonsense and threatening to ban them also carries the connotation of superiority without the proffered help and support.
Fred
At 01:31 AM 1/18/03 -0800, you wrote:
"We're better than you, and this is how you should do things." Zoe
<Ed Poor>
wrote: I like the new idea of a "mentor" better than the old idea of "this guy needs to be banned".
I suggest that mentors apply a 7-to-1 ratio of praise to criticism. That is, "I liked this" "That was good" "Thanks for mentioning X", etc. seven times, followed by "Oops! That's not how we do it" once.
"Uncle" Ed Poor _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
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Here's a link (good for a few days) on the theme Helga was harping on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?todaysheadlines
Fred
On sab, 2003-01-18 at 04:26, Fred Bauder wrote:
Here's a link (good for a few days) on the theme Helga was harping on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?todaysheadlines
What's it say? I can't read it without telling the New York times where I live, how much money I make a year and other personal details that they would never receive if I picked up a copy at my local newsstand. (Of course, they respect my privacy!)
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
At 06:43 AM 1/18/03 -0800, Brion wrote:
On sab, 2003-01-18 at 04:26, Fred Bauder wrote:
Here's a link (good for a few days) on the theme Helga was harping on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?todaysheadlines
What's it say? I can't read it without telling the New York times where I live, how much money I make a year and other personal details that they would never receive if I picked up a copy at my local newsstand. (Of course, they respect my privacy!)
They may or may not, but (a) they don't spam (I registered with them a few years ago), and (b) they don't check the data, so you can invent anything you like.
On sab, 2003-01-18 at 07:54, Vicki Rosenzweig wrote:
At 06:43 AM 1/18/03 -0800, Brion wrote:
What's it say? I can't read it without telling the New York times where I live, how much money I make a year and other personal details that they would never receive if I picked up a copy at my local newsstand. (Of course, they respect my privacy!)
They may or may not, but (a) they don't spam (I registered with them a few years ago),
So far, perhaps. If they change their mind, they claim they will e-mail you with three days' warning.
and (b) they don't check the data, so you can invent anything you like.
That would be dishonest, and put me in violation of their license agreement. If we don't want people to abuse Wikipedia's license, I think it's highly inappropriate to encourage abuse of other sites' licenses. Don't you?
-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)
Fred Bauder wrote:
Here's a link (good for a few days) on the theme Helga was harping on:
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/18/arts/18SCHN.html?todaysheadlines
F
Only in the past three years or so have German writers and historians begun to tackle a topic previously taboo: the sufferings of the German civilian population in the last years of World War II. (The Sebald essay, which was excerpted in The New Yorker in November, is being published by Random House in the United States next month under the title "On the Natural History of Destruction.")
At least one reason for the almost complete avoidance of this topic would appear to be self-evident: the critical authors of postwar Germany considered it a moral and aesthetic impossibility to describe the Germans, the nation responsible for the world war, as being among the victims of that war.
-----------
Hmm. similar to the way *no-one* in France talks about collaboration with the occupiers. Some 3 years ago a French historian published a book about it, and was immediately shunned in academic circles & criticized in the press, I heard.
there must be a special term for it ... post-traumatic shame or something.
Zoe wrote:
I think the mentoring idea smacks of elitism. "We're better than you, and this is how you should do things." Zoe
So?
What I mean is, we should always strive to be open to newcomers, welcoming, friendly, helpful. But we should also not lower our standards out of a misguided fear of "elitism". The fact is, some contributors *are* better than others -- by a long shot -- and that we can ease the 'learning curve' for our social mores if oldtimers aren't afraid to explain and defend them.
There is a way that things should be done, and people who do them correctly are better than people who don't.
--Jimbo