ROFLCOPTER. Ah, thanks for that Bawolff, that made for a good laugh this morning.

I'd like to take this brief moment to point out that if these are random samplings, then apparently I'm the devil of EN.Wikinews, because 3 of the 4 comments are me (For the kids playing along at home, you can try the "Guess which comment _isn't SGN" game. I'll give you a hint, look for rampant swearing). Another factoid is that all 4 of these comments came from just 2 threads. The even funnier and less statistically random part of these selected entries, is that all 4 of them are directed at the same user. I won't name names, because frankly everyone already knows who and why.

So to the topic at hand. Was my commentary rude? Probably (In fact someone did leave me an incivility note about one of the threads). Was it uncalled for? I don't think so. I will apologize for swearing, but I won't apologize for being human and having emotions. Yes, I go off the handle on occasion, I try to play nicely, but sometimes it happens. I generally apologize afterwards.

In the same respects I've seen others of us "go off" for one reason or another around the wiki and around IRC. We're all human (ok, at least most of us are) and we all have certain things that make us angry. I've had other users go off on me, and I don't expect them to be banned because of it. Once everyone is calmed down, everything is back to normal.

Oh, and lastly to address your subject line, that we have rising incivility, I really don't think so. Granted I don't have years of experience with Wikinews to draw on. But from what I've seen about the wiki, it is no worse than it was 6 months ago, and no worse and any other wiki. And really, you can't pull this commentary out of context and say "It's ok to pull it out of context" because it's not. Context gives meaning to everything. IMHO for the one comment that wasn't me, what was done to the user that wrote that was far worse (and FAR FAR FAR more discouraging) than what that user wrote back in reply.

On Wed, Feb 4, 2009 at 21:34, bawolff <bawolff+wn@gmail.com> wrote:

[I happened to stumble upon what appears to be an aftermath of an edit
war, and am quite disgusted by it. The following is basically a rant
about it, as I'm not really sure how best to bring it up]

I've recently noticed a marked increased in incivility between
contributors on Wikinews. I find this really disturbing as it is often
between admins who one would think know better. For example (And I'm
not trying to pick on anyone, these are just some random ones i came
across):

*"But no, you've gotta be an asshole just like always"
*"A small amount of brain activity would lead to the presumption that
someone in my position knows what they're doing"
*"I suggest you get the fuck off your high horse or get the fuck out of dodge"
*"they are _MY_ comment sections and _I_ can write what ever the hell _I_ want."

Now, I know I am taking these out of context, but to be blunt I don't
care if the context was responding to poop vandalism - It is
incredibly inappropriate for admins to say these things under any
circumstances. If these were new users making these comments, they
would have been blocked in the neighborhood of 2 weeks to a year,
maybe even indefinitely.

How can we really expect to recruit and retain new contributors, when
this is how the long time contributors are treated?

-Bawolff

_______________________________________________
Wikinews-l mailing list
Wikinews-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikinews-l