From: wikien-l-bounces(a)Wikipedia.org
[mailto:wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org] On Behalf Of John Lee
Peter Mackay wrote:
<snip>
If people are using Wikipedia to play rather than build an
encyclopaedia, then they should be encouraged in this primary
objective, not castigated for extraneous activies, because for every
frivolous userbox, I dare say if I went looking, I could find some
other piece of useless guff on the user pages of experienced
editors.
Let people play, if it does no harm and they are
participating in
community activities, but also encourage them to be more productive.
The difference is experienced users tend to contribute to
article space as well.
So do inexperienced users.
Many userbox fanatics make minimal or
no edits to articles. (Of course, most people with userboxes
aren't fanatics; I have quite a few userboxes myself. But
there are a few rogue bunch out there who seem more intent on
userboxes than building an encyclopedia.) I agree that this
is probably a symptom of a larger problem, though - people
forgetting we're here to build an encyclopedia, not play.
I think it goes deeper than that. I think that some new editors are being
made to feel that they are not part of the established WP community and
consequently they are "acting up". This is the same "old hands" vs
"young
Turks" divide I see on other sites and indeed in real life. This is not to
say that all old hands are pitted against all new arrivals, but it's a noisy
minority at both ends of the spectrum who are stirring things up.
Peter (Skyring)