[WikiEN-l] Edit Wikipedia Week is coming. How not to bite the n00bs?

[Monahon, Peter B.]

== Balancing our Wikipedia editing energies - "Can't we all just get
along?" ==

I think we are discussing where to apply energies.  Some of us are
suggesting being more spacious to newbies.  Let's not confuse that with
clearing out spam, vandalism, and off topic contributions.  These are
totally different subjects.  Sadly, admins use tools intended for spam,
vandalism, and off-topic contributions, on newbies and oldies when they
consider the content of a wiki page.  I'm asking admins to leave
anything that is not spam, not vandalism, not off-topic.  If it's sux,
is poorly written, duplicates or is unclear, leave it, and let someone
edit it if you have no energy for it at the moment.

I know I'm asking for a lot, but I'm just trying to move the bar BACK to
spam, vandalism, and off-topic contributions.

I appreciate that may feel irresponsible for someone to leave a crappy
page alone, but that is EXACTLY what I am asking for.

How about a compromise?  How about a template that says, 

"Hi, I'm an experienced Wikipedian, and I'm overwhelmed at trying to
edit this particular article/page/section into compliance with our goal
of accuracy, appropriateness, neutral point of view, well, I challenge
anyone here to write a concise summary of what Wikipedia's credo is and
how to find it equally concisely documented in .. .how many keystrokes /
mouse clicks?  I'm up to 7 and still can't find a list with NPOV and all
other criteria for editing and writing styles.

I can find http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars  but I
cannot find it quickly or directly from the front page.  It leads to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines which
then looses me in this list:
1 Sources of Wikipedia policy 
2 Policy-related articles 
2.1 Official policy articles 
2.2 Official guideline articles 
2.3 Non-official essays or proposals 
2.4 Processes relating to policy, guideline, essay, and proposal
articles 
3 Other types of policy or consensus-related articles 
3.1 Wikiprojects 
3.2 Feature requests 
3.3 "How to" or help pages 
4 How are policies enforced? 
5 Other essays and discussions about Wikipedia 
6 See also says

Ooops, we've wandered away from what's expected from editors and
writers.

And we wonder why people have such divergent experienced on Wikipedia?!?

How would anybody find
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Simplified_ruleset ?!?

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