[Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Newbie recruitment: referencing

[David Gerard]

On 3 November 2011 12:53, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:

> I
> wish we didn't always have to dispense with this tired argument that
> making editing easier will inundate the projects with idiots. Easy and
> open editing is the ethos that built the whole project.


Yes. All arguments of this form are saying "newbies are fundamentally
a problem." This is what I mean by the newbie hostility of the
incumbents as the big barrier.

"Making editing easier will lead to backlogs!" = "newbies are a problem"
"Making adding references easier will lead to backlogs!" = "newbies
are a problem"
"Letting people create pages will make work!" = "newbies are a problem"

As Kim notes, it's project-wide adminitis.

I don't have a ready solution - you can't just demand people be more
welcoming and expect it to happen - but I think this is the key to the
problem.


- d.