[Foundation-l] Will Beback

[Nathan]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 6:00 AM, James Heilman <jmh649 at gmail.com> wrote:

> I must disagree with Risker that this is simply a local issue involving a
> single project or with a previous editor who feels that English Wikipedia
> can take care of itself. We have a serious lack of editors not only on
> English Wikipedia but within the project as a whole and this is getting
> worse rather than better. The foundation has been putting great efforts
> into attracting editors and Will's case touches on the issue of recruitment
> and retention of editors to the project as a whole and thus is directly
> relevant to the WMF. We have had issues with how some admins treat new
> editors to the movement and it seems we also have issues with how some of
> our long standing editors are dealt with specifically by Arbcom. If we base
> our decisions on isolated behavioral matters exclusively without taking
> into account content issues or the contribution histories of the editors in
> question this institution will make bad decisions for the project and the
> movement as a whole.
>
> --
> James Heilman
> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
> _______________________________________________
>

Are you suggesting that the WMF, or the Wikimedia community, should impose
or agitate for a policy on the English Wikipedia of immunizing prolific
contributors from conduct policies?

I'm not sure that would have your intended effect on retention. It has been
as commonly argued, on Wikipedia and elsewhere, that we are already too lax
on vested contributors when it comes to conduct policy... and that this
veterans' privilege contributes to a sometimes poisonous atmosphere that
damages new editor recruitment and retention.

What might be more useful is the development of better tools to support
editors in difficult and important subject areas, better community
engagement in those areas, and a mechanism to intervene before the
battleground ethos overtakes otherwise sterling contributors.