[WikiEN-l] Quitting Wikipedia and wanted you to know why.

[Ray Saintonge]

Parker Peters wrote:

>I've welcomed new users. I really wish our welcome message included item
>links to the dispute resolution areas (broken as they are) these days. I
>think it would help new users who get into a conflict when being bold, since
>bold behavior often leads to conflicts with others. For that matter, why
>isn't a welcome message automatically generated on the creation of any new
>account's talk page, so they'd instantly see a "You have new messages" bar
>and be able to see the welcome message? Why not do that instead of waiting
>for an admin to come along and do it?
>
I don't know that an automated message will help.  The templated welcome 
messages that I have seen strike me as very cold and impersonal.  A 
pleasant welcome without references to a lot of rules would be more 
friendly.  When one person shows a willingness to answer question and be 
a mentor it gives the newbie someone to turn to.

>I've screwed up and blocked someone in a conflict of interest. Twice. I
>apologized later, but the damage was done. In one case I didn't apologize
>until the 24 hours was up, because I didn't calm down quick enough and
>nobody - thanks to the "contact the blocking admin first" stupidity we have
>these days - was willing to unblock once I logged out. I got two "I want to
>talk to you about this case" messages, but since I didn't respond, nobody
>unblocked. In the second case, I unblocked after 10 hours, but only after
>another admin contacted me on IRC. Their statement was that they wouldn't
>unblock as it would be "incivil" to me to do so, but they thought I should
>reconsider.
>
Sounds like somebody needed a reality check.  There is nothing uncivil 
about a single reversal with relevant comments.  It merely deals with 
the fact that none of us can be online 24/7

>Yes, it does bother me that I did this, and yes, this is partially why I'm
>leaving, or at least taking a decently long wikibreak. Because I'd seen this
>behavior in others, but catching myself doing it makes me unhappy with
>myself, and realizing that I did it in part because I'd absorbed the "admins
>are gods" culture in Wikipedia makes me worry I'd do it again on another bad
>day.
>
Congratulations for being able to recognize when you do this yourself.  
Too many spend a lifetime here incapable of understanding that they are 
sometimes the one at fault.

>- I've seen plenty of edit wars and enforced 3RR. Three times in my memory
>someone's unblocked someone that I blocked for 3RR/edit warring when they
>were tag-teaming someone else. Yes, they technically didn't violate 3RR.
>Were they trying to provoke the other guy into it? Damn skippy they were.
>Policy says you block both sides in an edit war, not just the 3RR violator,
>and I was following that.
>
I've never supported 3RR, but one needs to remember its purpose, which 
is to calm an argument, not to solve it.  Persistently using it as a 
punitive weapon tends to lose track of its purpose.

Ec