Hello Peaceray,
There are many Wikipedians like you who continuously dedicate themselves to well receive and help newbies, being absolutely decisive in keeping and improving the projects health. But I was referring specifically to the core community, the one which regularly frequent village pumps and generally has a say in the project politics and community issues - no idea if you consider yourself to be or not be part of that. My perception is that such core community is generally hostile to newbies. I have been myself an active part of that core community in my home wiki pretty much since I joined 11 years ago, but I remember quite vividly how difficult it was to become part of that club, facing constant accusations of being a sockpuppet, accused of knowing too much for a newbie while getting my talk page carpet-bombed with warnings, accused of lying about my nationality, enduring childish jokes about my family name, accused of coming there to disturb what was in peace for years, and whatever. And those were the golden years, now it's way worst than that.
The basic premise for any activity related to Wikipedia, is that Wikipedia generally is an hostile environment. Whoever joins the project must be prepared to face the worst, and then anything good that happens gets to be a wonderful gain. But the stuff about how fun is to edit Wikipedia is not true a very significant part of the time. Old rats like me got to know very well over the years how to avoid trouble and get the thing to be as pleasant as possible, but the poor rookies, they are generally up to some troubled times if they really want to stay. Social media such as Telegram, where newbies can socialize with experts and get help in an easy, friendly and quick way, are playing a very positive role on that. But the onwiki situation is pretty much awful.
Best, Paulo
Raymond Leonard raymond.f.leonard.jr@gmail.com escreveu no dia terça, 25/02/2020 à(s) 19:40:
I hope I am one of those "rare exceptions" that Paulo Santos Perneta writes about. I also wish that welcoming would be neither rare or exceptional.
My habit:
- For newly registered users, which I define as someone with a redlinked
talk page, I welcome them.
- If I am going to revert that user's edit then warn them (via Twinkle almost always), I want to ensure that they are welcomed first.
- For IP editors:
un-welcomed IP editor, I typically use one of the Twinkle
- If I am reverting an obviously inappropriate edit by an
welcome/warning combos, such as Template:Welcome-anon-test, Template:Welcome-anon-unconstructive, or Template:Welcome-anon-delete. - If an un-welcomed IP editor, makes a revertible edit that is non-malicious, I usually do a Template:Welcome-anon without the article parameter, then add a warning - If an un-welcomed IP editor, editor is doing good, I use a Template:Welcome-anon-constructive
Peaceray
On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 10:58 AM Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
I have a more nuanced view.
The community benefits from new editors who are acting in good faith and willing to learn.
I agree that treatment of new editors can be problematic.
On the other hand, having become one of the "insiders", I now understand how English Wikipedia has a limited supply of skilled labor from volunteers who are trying to defend Wikipedia against vandals, conflict of interest editors, copyright violations, and other problems.
There is a WMF team working to improve the onboarding experience. I'm cc'ing Marshal Miller (WMF) here in case he would like to comment.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
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