[WikiEN-l] You Really Don't Get It

[Todd Allen]

On 4/20/07, Newyorkbrad (Wikipedia) <newyorkbrad at gmail.com> wrote:
> (copied from earlier untruncated message that was bounced as too long,
> apologies for any duplication if that one later goes through)
>
>
> (By the way NYBrad, what's the other issue? Now I'm curious.)
> Seraphimblade
>
> I thought you'd never ask.  This is the third time I've posted the exact
> same sentence and the first time someone's been curious (although I have
> mentioned the issue itself before, including in my RfA).  However, I don't
> want to change the subject of this thread, which is important, so responses
> to this comment, if any, should go into a new one.
>
> What I view as the other top priority issue facing the project is the
> extraordinarily high rate of turnover and burnout that we seem to suffer
> from, especially among top-level administrators and leading contributors.
> Turnover is part of any Internet project as any other part of life, but when
> I read the names of the participants in an RfA from say a year ago, or
> I look at the list of bureaucrats or former arbitrators or top featured
> article contributors or whoever, I am consistently amazed and saddened by
> how high a percentage of the names on the list have moved on.  Sometimes
> after a spectacular departure, sometimes after vanishing without a trace.
> As highly as I think of our collective contributor and administrator base
> at present (and I do think that we have an incredibly strong talent base on
> this project, no matter how critical I or anyone might be of some or another
> aspect from time to time), just imagine how much greater we could be if a
> percentage of those people were still with us.  I believe we need to
> identify the causes of Wikipedians' stress and burnout -- or in NPOV terms,
> of departures from the project -- and figure out if there is a way to reduce
> them.
>
> Newyorkbrad
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Well, before we start talking solutions, we probably should more
clearly identify the problem. Maybe look through some of the obvious
flameouts and see what led up to them, and try to contact those who
left without a trace (maybe they left email enabled or the like?) and
ask what led to their decision to leave. I certainly have noticed the
same problem myself, though. If we can find some common threads as to
why it's happening, maybe we can slow the rate down.

Seraphimblade

-- 
Freedom is the right to know that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.