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

[Ray Saintonge]

On 11/03/11 5:59 AM, David Gerard wrote:
> 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.

When a problem has become systemic the first challenge is to recognize 
it. o person is explicitly stating, "Nrebies are a problem."

The problem won't be solved with the WikiLove template either, since 
that's nothing more than institutionalized condescension.

Ray