In case it's not clear enough in my sig, this is my personal opinion:
On Wed, Sep 10, 2014 at 12:20 AM, Martijn Hoekstra < martijnhoekstra@gmail.com> wrote:
On Sep 10, 2014 5:11 AM, "Keegan Peterzell" keegan.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Sep 9, 2014 at 10:04 AM, Wil Sinclair wllm@wllm.com wrote:
FWIW, I signed my first comment by hand. I missed the comments about sigs in the wikitext editor interface. If it weren't for my family situation, I'm pretty sure I would have bailed. In any case, it was much easier to engage at WO, and that was partly- but not mostly- due to the fact that they run discussion software over there.
,Wil
This - signing by hand - is pretty much a universal experience for new users, myself included.
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:History_of_Alaska&diff=p...
-- ~Keegan
I'm not saying that isn't crap and unwelcoming: it is, and it deters new users. But it's hardly the end of the world either. By signing the wrong way no real harm is done, if someone just tells you about the option to use
It's crap and archaic and should be fixed, but it's also an example of the idea that there are no mistakes on a wiki. So you did something not right? Great, that means you contributed. So we fix it (collaboratively) and improve your contribution, no harm done.
I agree with you, Martjin. If you follow the cookie crumbs you'd see that I registered an account on the English Wikipedia /solely/ so I could sign a complaint about a resource I used and loved, and I thought it best to give respect back by registering and figuring out how to sign my complaint. I was also incredibly lucky as a n00b to have positive interactions, right from the get-go, which makes it a little more clear to me why I'm still around after all this time. I'm thirty-three years old, to me a nine-year unintentional commitment is a lifetime :)
I'm also aware, through my experiences through the past nine years, that my experience is Golden™, and I desperately wish all new users could have such an experience.
This kind of thing starts with software changes that break my workflow. I hate that. But to be fair, my workflow is ridiculous because the software is.
The steps I have to take to do the things that I do would, IMO, make a rational person cry :). I really don't understand the theory that new users have to go through the same experiences as I did, no matter how pleasant, again IMO, my experiences were. Hazing is an antiquated and unfruitful process. It only breaks people down to rebuild them in the image that you want, and that's contradictory to the individualism that Wikimedia promotes. I enjoy the fact that Wikimedia sites allow flexibility and customization on a personal account and institutional level. On the other hand, the world keeps moving and I stay in the same place unless I choose to go through the process of acceptance of a changing world. I do not consider the world changing to be something shoved down my throat; it's a reality of life.