[WikiEN-l] Editors, who are not editors

[Ray Saintonge]

Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 20/10/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
>  
>
>>I have been increasingly worried about one editors contribution
>>history lately. The vast majority (possibly over 90%) of their last
>>500 edits have been in Wikipedia/Wikipedia talk space. It is my
>>understanding that Wikipedia: space is for editors to use to organise
>>the development of articles.
>>
>>My question is how does an editor--who spends all their time in
>>Wikipedia space--know what they are trying to achieve?
>>    
>>
>The real question is what was before those 500 edits. Are we talking
>someone who only sits in that namespace ever, or are we talking a
>several-year-standing highly active user who happens to have been
>focusing on project work in the last few weeks?
>
>The answers for the two cases are very different.
>
You're both right.  Applying this to any one editor would be a time 
consuming process.  Administration is an open pit of a job where it's 
very easy to lose track of why you are involved in Wikipedia in the 
first place.  Civil engineers with great ideas about design and 
construction end up administring companies, and never do real 
engineering work again.

Worthwhile as it may be we have never asked admins to subject themselves 
to reality checks from time to time.  It would be a great idea to 
require that admins spent 10% of their work on real edits, but I doubt 
that it would be enforceable.

Ec