on 2/9/07 2:58 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
I encourage you to try designing a support system though, WP can't afford to lose all its admins to "churn".
Stan
I¹ve learned a lot from the List today; specifically about some of the people who make Wikipedia go. I have a hell of a lot to learn about its administrative workings; and I won¹t even think about going near the technical background elements (no one is ready for the chaos that would produce :-) ) But, the people
Everyone brings their own special gifts to the Project; that¹s what makes it work so well. Mine happens to be people: how they interact with their self, and with other persons.
From what I have read I do believe a formal, recognized support mechanism is
needed to help persons in the project experiencing periodic, situational difficulties. Were are dealing with creative personalities here, and, like it or not, this creativity comes with a certain degree of fragility, and, yes, flakiness (very definitely, me included in fact I¹ve been called things I had to look up).
To even suggest that if someone burns out, there are hundreds waiting in the wings to replace them is to dehumanize them.
I¹m going to chew on this some more. But whatever proposal I come up with is probably going to require people to do some thinking outside the Wikibox; but why the hell not something¹s not working within it.
Marc Riddell