[Commons-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] Friendliness

[Lars Aronsson]

On February 22, this Commons welcome greeting was forwarded:

> *Please categorize our images !!!*
> You already have been asked by a bot to categorize your images. Therefore I
> don't understand why you keep on uploading images without categories.
> Uploading images without categorizing them doesn't make sense. Only
> categorized images can be found!

This was written (on July 4, 2010) in English by a German.
In my opinion, we should let Germans write software but
not welcome greetings, at least not in English. All of
the worst cases I have seen on Commons have been rude
English messages written by Germans.

This kind of mastering, "I shall teach you" tone is
not uncommon on the German Wikipedia. When these Germans
come to Commons, they bring the tone and just translate
the words. The result can be disasterous. In the worst
cases, it is magnified through a less then perfect
mastering of English.

In this case, the same user continues to this day,
with lots of '''boldface''' and exclamation marks:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Dezidor&diff=prev&oldid=50840295

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:CostaPPPR&diff=prev&oldid=50827139

http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Obenhausener&diff=prev&oldid=49653412

Of course, most Germans are civilian. It's just that
those who aren't, aren't corrected. Civility is
treated just as any random personal property, like
hair colour, and is not seen as an obligation.

Maybe Wikimedia Deutschland can organize a course
in writing in a civil manner in English. That would be a
real service to the community.


-- 
   Lars Aronsson (lars at aronsson.se)
   Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se