[WikiEN-l] What's the issue?

[Denni]

I don't get it, Timwi. Correct me if my perception is wrong, but it's
like you're against cheers and pats on the back. PLEASE correct me.
Yeah, when someone bothers to leave me a note about how they liked my
article or photo, I'm happy, but I consider myself fortunate to have
huge amounts of experience with both writing and photography; if the
plaudits I've earned by exemplary performance (no humility here) are
reflective of what the "average" writer/illustrator gets, then there's a
pathetically abyssmal level of feedback and encouragement going on. We
have lost, or so it would seem, two talented and capable writers in the
last month because it's easier to bitch and criticise than to support
and praise. Or at least to yell "patent nonsense" when we should have
just kept our bleeding gobs shut until we had bothered to determine
whether or not we were peeing on our own shoes.

As an easy example, try this: SETI Online offers online certificates for
work units completed. I am coming up on certificate four - 1000 work
units - and I'm excited. Work for SETI? Zero. Their web page (or a
counting applet attached) counts the returned work units and
automatically adds access to new certificates as I am eligible for them.
We have some crackerjack coders here who could, I'm sure, easily
implement a routine to do such a thing. Volunteer work (pick me!!) can
design 500 edits/1000 edits/2000 edits etc. certificates, and then it's
all up to the editor to download certs as they show up on his /her
userpage. (I can print as many 100 workunits as I want - it's my
printer, my ink, and my money. I could paper my walls or send one to all
my friends. What does it cost Wiki? Does zero sound like a good number
to you?)

Timwi, Wiki has to be in part about the fun of doing it, and that
=somebody= sees and appreciates the effort you're contributing. That is
one area where Wiki could do a vastly better job. E2 has a chatbox, so
community links can develop quickly and effectively (they also have a
bunch of level 3+ editors who need a good cuff on the side of the head
for the way they treat newbies, but that's another topic). Village Pump
is not exactly chat, and IRC, as wonderful as I'm sure it is, is
prodigiously threatening to the newbie user. The only contact with other
Wikipedians is what the newbie initiates herself/himself.

I don't know how best this can be done. Do we create a WikiCommittee
whose job it is to track users and drop comments on their user page? Do
we ask a codejunkie to write a script to autogenerate certificate
messages? Help me out here, allies. Whatever we do, if anything, I offer
my assistance, because the more welcome we make good writers feel, the
longer they stay, and the more welcome we make weak writers feel, the
stronger they get.

Denni

--
•"Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. " -- Pablo
Picasso