[WikiEN-l] Newbies who don't act like newbies

[Ron Ritzman]

On 12/1/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:

> The problem is not the diagnosis that this was an experienced
> Wikipedia user; by his own admission, he was.  The problem is
> assumption of bad faith.  A  lot of assumption of bad faith,
> liberally distributed.

And I've been guilty of that myself when I've seen AFD nominations on
the first edit.

Ever since Usenet was started in the late 70s, old timers lamented
that newbies didn't [[RTFM]], didn't read FAQs, and made the same old
mistakes over and over again and that experienced users were answering
the same questions over and over again. Oh how nice it would be if
newbies would step back and learn how things worked before diving in.
(or as we like to call it "being bold")

So when did this trend of suspecting editors who don't have a history
of "newbie mistakes" of being potential troublemakers start? I can
think of several good faith explanations for this...

The "newbie" might be a long time anon editor who finally took common
advice and registered an account.

The "newbie" might have experience on other wikis.

The "newbie" might have started out using his real meatspace name,
which is common on some classic wikis such as Meatball but thought
twice about it due to net.kooks who like to make trouble for people in
real life.