[WikiEN-l] Admin / experienced user flameout - how do we talk people down off the ledge?

[Jon Q]

Hello all,

New here; first post. I'm a longtime Wikipedia user and recent first-time
editor. Had a rather discouraging incident with regard to my first article
on the site, rather an eye-opener as I've attempted to study up on how
things work -- or are supposed to work, and finding out that the loftier
philosophies of the site really don't seem to hold a great reverence within
the system.

This is not just based on my one experience -- I was trying to save the
article I'd written from deletion and trekked around the site looking for
proper reasons it should survive. And I found them! Presenting them --
another matter. I then researched other such situations and found a very
common theme. I also found external articles with numerous examples of
discouraged editors -- and especially former editors.

So on point with this situation, "how do you talk the guy off the ledge" --
naturally that's situational, but after that's resolved, the good question
for prevention is "why did he get there?"  And from what I've seen, there
seems so much room for frustration, and so much room for conflict.  The site
has an article for so many "internal" situations, too -- and it almost
begins to seem like the Bible in that someone can find a section to address
nearly every circumstance. i.e., you can justify both "yes" and "no" some
way or another.  Hard to believe then, that conflicts arise?

The site sounds so wonderful as you enter -- "Come on in!  Start writing!
Be bold!  Break the rules!" and you're heartened by the seeming generosity
of spirit.  Until you actually encounter some experienced editors. The
problem here then becomes something I've seen over and again in my own
career -- people are actually more comfortable with "rules" than with vague
standards which could allow for wiggle room.  They all KNOW about the
pillars and IAR and pay lip service -- but in practice, they have little
real application.  What's surprising is -- administrators seem to behave the
same!

My own philosophy as a supervisor/manager in my own career has been: if
you're only there to make sure the rules are adhered to -- then you make
yourself obsolete. No company needs a walking, talking version of the policy
manual. What a supervisor exists for is more toward making sure the spirit
of several objectives are met, including the policy's intent weighed against
what's actually best for all concerned. If the policy says you close at 6:00
and the customer gets there at 6:01, you can turn him away and be "right"
but suffer loss of goodwill and business for the company -- so how good was
your judgement in that situation?  And would you expect the company's owner
to pat you on the back after that customer gets ahold of him?

This may be overly simple in an interest to keep this short-ish, but it
feels like the starting point of sorts would seem to lie with these
administrators. Maybe they are "just" editors with better tools, but they
have the experience with the site and they are the ones looked to for fair
judgement and good example-setting.  Special attention should be given to
them as they are the de-facto frontline conflict resolution sources, and
their education on how to do that well will serve to stave off larger
conflicts and ALSO keep conflicts from escalating into the laps of the
higher-ups, who would likely rather spend their time dealing with loftier
matters!

I don't know what the actual screening process is here; perhaps it does
contain elements of the higher intentions of the site before approval is
reached. Usually as advancement goes in most companies, a front-line worker
does a good job and expects a promotion -- but everything he learned as a
worker is not geared toward supervision. Soon after that promotion, his
former fellow workers start grumbling and complaining about his "power
trips."  Because -- as a new supervisor, he is overly diligent toward that
policy manual, and tries to gain respect by insisting on his authority.  So
who really trained him on wiggle room and "earning" respect?  Who teaches
them that "real" power is had by knowing how to lead without carrying a
sledgehammer by one's side?

That's part of the goal then -- to get rid of the sledgehammers so that
people don't keep getting clobbered.