[WikiEN-l] The story of an article

[Stephen Streater]

I seem to remember a certain admin suggested banning me (not just  
blocking, you note!) a few months after I got started at WP. This was  
after I had discussed all my ideas on the appropriate policy  
discussion groups (which were not that easy for a new user to find, as  
it happens) for several months, and started carrying out the consensus  
amongst those who frequented them.

Now who would that have been, I wonder ;-)

On 3 Jan 2010, at 15:23, Gregory Maxwell wrote:

> I do know with absolute certainty that if some admin had blocked me in
> error early in my editing my response would have been to forget about
> the site and not attempt to edit it again for many years, if ever.
> This has nothing to do with information and everything to do with the
> fact that people editing for the site are giving a gift of their time
> and effort. If we treat it as something they should be grateful that
> we permit, then the site will preferentially attract the kind of
> people who should be grateful that they are allowed to edit (e.g.
> spammers). I don't think we want that.
>
>
> [I edited articles for some time (over a year, I believe) without
> bothering to make an account and only bothered making one when I
> wanted to make some argument about project policy; I wish now that I
> never had— the project would likely have gotten a lot more useful work
> out of me if I'd continued just anonymously improving articles.]

Of course, I agree with the sentiments expressed here - but it is hard  
for a member of a clique to look outwards or appreciate how someone on  
the outside experiences WP.