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

[Poor, Edmund W]

Anyone who has 'trouble' following the rules should get a standard
time-out for each violation, until they either

1. Get a clue, or
2. Choose to be elsewhere

This includes me!

And I'm currently trying this out in conjunction with Sarah, with
Gabriel Simon (aka Gavin the Chosen). He has in fact agreed to this, as
an alternative to going before the arbcom.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: David Gerard [mailto:fun at thingy.apana.org.au] 
> Sent: Sunday, August 14, 2005 6:29 AM
> To: wikien-l at wikipedia.org
> Subject: [WikiEN-l] How to work better with brittle users?
> 
> 
> 
> 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.
> 
> 
> 
>