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

[David Goodman]

Yes, there are enough misconceptions to make this worth discussion. In
fact,  one oft he reasons for not notifying is when one knows the
notification will be ignored, or, possibly, start a conflict.
Give the official equality of all admins, most of us are not anxious
for conflict, and this is always powerful factor for hiding problems.
If we brought up all the problems we had with one another, the already
combative tendencies of our form of discussion would be overwhelming.

That this leads to non-notification is only part of the problem.  It
also leads to a failure to correct errors. When I see a bad speedy,
unless I think it's really important, I leave it alone, and do not
revert it, although I know it will result in people coming to that
admin's talk page thinking there have been no problems. To a certain
degree, that we get along is more important as a practical matter than
that we get it right.  I'd like to find a way to deal with this.

David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG



On Fri, Oct 30, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Charles Matthews
<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> 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
>
>
>
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