[WikiEN-l] How to work better with brittle users?

[David Gerard]

This is a question that has occurred to me in the context of arbitration,
and how to avoid it.

There's a common personality type for trouble on Wikipedia: brittle in
interactions with others, can't tolerate ambiguity, so gets into
rules-lawyering. Sees "common sense" and "judgement" mostly as excuses to
exercise bias, not as recognition that all rules are fluid in the pursuit
of our goal.

I am not thinking of any individual, but of a general type I've noticed. I
think something about Wikipedia will tend to attract them. I would *guess*
it's something that attracts people from further up the autistic spectrum
than the general populace, but that's just speculation.

The point is that they're good and hard-working contributors, but can get
difficult to work with. And putting them on a processing line that leads to
arbitration strikes me as not being a good thing. Is there a better way?
I welcome your thoughts and speculation.


- d.