en:wp has a vast collective of policies, guidelines and essays to navigate. Where once we had a philosophy "if the rule get in the way of making an enncyclopedia ignore the rules" now with so much of what we do the rules have become absolute. Acknwoledging BLLP, COI, and copyright need to be absolute.
When new people come along we have expectations that these people can research, write, and produce content as post grad level from day, if they create a new article its expected to ready for at least a GA rating if not FA.
we have so many processes that our precious volunteer resources are stretched thin which leaves us with small groups of contributors focused on discussion in isolation, that creates the power imbalance.
1. Articles for deletion 2. templates for deletions 3. files for deletions 4. categories for deletions 5. redirect for deletions 6. miscellany for deletions 7. speedy 8. prod
each with their own process and rules, each with their tiny own group regulars responding to every request and doing the process gnome work. While it may make for bigger maintance pages the reality is these 8 processes can defined into two areas,
- Content - Articles - Files - Speedy - prod
- internal / administrative functionality - templates - categories - redirects - miscellany
We then have deletion review, which also divided and into smaller parts depending on the deletion discussion process it went through. At the time dividing process because they were too big sounded like a good idea, the reality was what we did was also divide resources and create virtual fiefdoms. When you add into the deletion mix New page patrol with its various tools and Articles for creation each with their own processes its no wonder so many potential new contributors cant get their head around how we work. This isnt limited to deletion, it happens with everything Admin, Vandalism, renames, disputes, and everything else we do. We've made RFA a big deal once admins got the tools if on the balance of things they likely to work towards the benefit of the community, now if they are required to have a lifetime of experience, the personality of a saint, and perfection of master craftsman before they even get nominated at which the community tears there contributions apart word by word looking for the faintest reason to oppose, in the process veiled abuse and innuendo is accepted, praised, and speaker raised to the status of a god. In reality all we need to see is positive contributions, and a fair tone when participating in consensus building.
We frown upon external discussions about policies and process, like the current Strategic direction discussions taking place maybe its time that the WMF do a similar process talking to as many people as possible , bring back to the community a way forward that not only refines our bureaucracy but also ensures that the Wikipedia communities out lasts the 25 year Strategic plan
On 24 March 2018 at 09:27, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi John,
I agree that millions of people choose to spend time on Facebook, as well as games and other recreational activities like computer games. My guess is that, for most people, these activities often don't feel like work, while contributing to Wikimedia often feels like work. I think that are technical and social factors that contribute to Wikimedia activity feeling like it requires more effort and/or is less rewarding than the alternatives.
If we had enough human and financial resources, there are changes that could be made to improve the user experience and to make the rules be easier to learn and to understand.
I think that making the rules be easier to learn and to understand are more realistic goals than reducing the complexity of the rules.
Also, I think that there may be design and technical changes that could be made to improve the intuitiveness of the user experience, and to improve the social experience.
I'm hoping that my training project will help with users' learning and understanding of the rules and the interface. However, this is a long term project.
Design improvements made to the interface would be good if they could be done well and if WMF could afford them, but my guess is that such changes will be incremental over many years and that giants like Google will always be in the lead party because they can afford to spend so much more money and have so many more staff to make their sites be user-friendly and to optimize their sites for the user behaviors that they want to foster.
To a certain extent, Google and other large consumer-oriented organizations compete with WMF for the time of consumers, although one can hope that they will eventually decide that Wikimedia content is valuable enough to them that they want to support the community far more than they do at the moment.
I wish that I had reasons to be more optimistic about the human resources and financial situation in Wikimedia. If you can think of any, I would like to hear them. :)
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe