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(a)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:
- If I am reverting an obviously inappropriate edit by an
un-welcomed IP editor, I typically use one of the Twinkle
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(a)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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