No, of course there was no intention, stated or otherwise, to help. That was exactly my point, in case you missed it. If you have to ask about how you are expected to help, you can't afford to do it. You are out of your depth and out of your league (absolutely no offense intended).

I love English lessons. They take me way back to my youth. Of course everybody is entitled to his own definitions of kind and nice, but for "kind" I'll stick to "having or showing a friendly, generous, and considerate nature," and for "nice," "pleasant; agreeable; satisfactory." If you were trying to be both kind and nice, I appreciate that, and regret not having recognized it. Please don't let me forget to let you know whenever you do succeed, but spare me of "taking up time from [your] life, for [my] potential benefit alone." Please don't. Nobody will believe you, and neither will I.

From then on, I have no idea of what you were writing about.

Dealing with an old hand is no kid's business. Got to tread very lightly here. "Whistling past the graveyard" is a very appropriate metaphor considering that the problems, no matter how large or small, of those that are there, are definitely over. Time eventually solves all our problems. If you are "patient and persistent enough" they will go away.

Maintaining best practices is an entirely different matter. I would tend to agree that THERE ARE problems, but it's beyond me to list them all, or the projects where they persist. Given that human nature is what it is, I strongly believe that there is room for continuos improvement, both at the personal level (and I mean no offense to anyone, by implying that any of the members of this list, except myself, are less than perfect) and in each and everyone of the Wikimedia Foundation projects (and I mean no offense to any project and/or members of any project, by implying that any of them, except myself, is less than perfect).

Now comes the tricky part. Let's review what I wrote about Meta, for example:

http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Vapmachado#Updated_request_for_assi...

"The work on Meta was being done in an orderly manner until the disruption provoked and caused by those same people mentioned above. The user is the same. Trouble only started after the interference of the same people from the Portuguese Wikipedia on Meta. Their votes can be seen popping up on the RfA. There has never been a single block on any other Wikimedia project where these editors do not have any influence. The obvious conclusion is that the hostile behavior stays with that people, not this user."

Thousands of people are involved in those processes. It has been and it continues to be discussed extensively elsewhere. I might be one of the few or the only one who has patiently and persistently brought it up here, sometimes at the risk of disrupting this list. I do apologize for that. I wish I didn't have any reasons to do it, but nothing would give me greater satisfaction than realizing that I made a speckle of a difference in making things better for others, so they would not have to go through the same that I did, and at least one Wikimedia project would be better off for that.

I recall how some people have been so baffled that they wonder about what are my intentions. I don't think I ever answered. We all know that "hell is full of good intentions." What I have done is nothing, but whatever I have done for the Wikimedia Foundation projects nobody can take away from me. Now, would you believe me if I told you that there are some people who are spending their time and effort trying to do just that? Sad isn't it? But yes, it is true, you better believe me.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado Executive Editor, http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/pt:Log%C3%ADsticaLogística a Logistics wikibook in Portuguese The One and Only Editor to ever develop and complete http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/pt:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Projetos/Escolares_e_universit%C3%A1rios#Projectos_em_cursoacademic projects on the Brazilian Wikipedia