[WikiEN-l] How friendly are we to Newbies? Update on the create an article as a newbie challenge

[Charles Matthews]

Ryan Delaney wrote:
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 12:59 PM, Charles Matthews 
> <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com 
> <mailto:charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com>> wrote:
>
>     David Gerard wrote:
>     >  Discussion on the funcs list indicates there's a
>     > real problem. That way, the admin population can't dismiss it as
>     just
>     > you whining - but something the arbs are seeing as well, and
>     consider
>     > below the ideal of admin behaviour. We're after a cultural change,
>     > after all.
>     >
>     So where do we stand now on your comment (of not too long ago)
>     that the
>     preferred mode for reversing a bum speedy deletion is not to
>     notify the
>     deleting admin?
>
>     Charles
>
>
> Maybe I'm late to the party here, but isn't it uncontroversial that 
> contacting the deleting admin is Step 1 whenever we want to peer 
> review an admin's use of sysop tools?
>
Which was how the point arose. I'm quite a hardliner in general on the 
collegiate approach and requirement on admins to do exactly that; as 
some people know.

The question is what nuances there are. In arguing that undoing a 
clearly erroneous speedy, post-notification of the action is probably 
adequate, I came across this idea that one should just do it rather than 
make an issue; and that this was accepted practice as of 2009. (I then 
went and spent quite a bit of time on speedy patrol to assess how things 
were over there.)

This fits into the current debate in the form not of whether reversing a 
bad speedy is some sort of wheel-warring (which is a kind of reductio ad 
absurdum); but that not reporting that it has been reversed is actually 
or potentially causing a lack of feedback to admins with systematic 
errors of approach. (We're all fallible, but this study raises the 
question whether there are enough misconceptions out there in the group 
of admins to make this a serious matter.)

Charles