Yes there is some data on templating in a research paper somewhere, and some more on a/b template runs. But the solution is not trivial. I have stuck up for a few editors who appear to be children, suggesting that we treat them a little more gently, only to be told that they are in fact trolls, pretending to be children, pretending to create obvious socks...
When I joined Wikipedia I was constantly being surprised (and delighted) by the unwillingness to block, the willingness to unblock, the IAR ethos when something did something obviously good that broke a rule. I get the feeling that many admins still have the same /attitude/ they are just to weary to AGF. UNblock is pretty much always "standard offer or nothing" - even people who say "I see what I did was wrong but.." end up with their talk page access removed, or giving up. This is not about the vandalism only accounts, this is people who do something stupid, and something in good faith, or make a mistake. They may well not be ready to edit for a few years, but we are building up a resentment about Wikipedia that is visible in every comments section of every article about Wikipedia "I tired to edit once and it got reverted". Of course there will always be some who won't engage with discussion, but fundamentally we should be able to engage these people, rather than alienate them.
On 03/01/2013 10:01, Thomas Morton wrote:
It might help; often it is surprising how statistical analysis can help narrow the focus of such efforts. For example; it is taken as a given that incivility drives away new users, but do we have hard statistical evidence to back that up? And if that is a true situation, can we identify specifically what uncivil things are driving the most editors away (rudeness, templating, etc.). Although please lets do it without words like "big data", which makes me squirm :P Tom