Improving the newcomer experience

This is a great thread. There seems to be a lot of support for "Improving the newcomer experience," "Improving the experienced editor experience," and starting off by referring to newcomers with some respect, which includes not calling them "newbies." (It brings to mind: New? Bye!)

All these "downright aggressive and unfriendly attitudes" seem to be dispensed with largess and abandon by "a small number of "experienced" editors" (not to mention the Foundation CEO :-) I regret not to be familiar with "any policy worded to deal with this specific problem" and how and/or why it/they ended up "being abused by other editors with an agenda."

It is also stated, and it's easy to accept, that "getting one volunteer to provide a "gentle push" -- & no more -- to another is a perennial issue." Therefore, there is an apparent need to "provide a successful solution" and share it.

Is it possible that the following statement will be generally, if not universally, accepted?

"An experienced editor is not necessarily a great communicator."

That might help sort out a lot of things. If it is recognized that by becoming an experienced editor one does not acquire any other human, much less godlike qualities, it might be easier to steer the right people in the right directions. Some of you might even know and/or recognize from experience that some newcomers might be the best communicators to other newcomers. A whole new way of doing things opens up.

The statement above applies to many other human qualities. Not quite in jest, being founder or co-founder, is not synonym of being a know it all. We must never loose sight of our own humanity. Otherwise, we may never be able to see others as brothers in our common humanity. Hey! I'm not saying you have to hug and kiss them all, all the time. Don't you have any brothers and sisters, even of the not the same blood type? Right. That's what I mean. No need to exaggerate.

Sincerely,

Virgilio A. P. Machado

I agree, the first step in improving the newcomer experience should be to drop the use of the word newbie.

But beware the euphemism treadmill. Whatever temporarily sanitized label we invent for newbies, it will in turn take on exactly the same connotations eventually, and we will have to invent a new sanitized label, and so on.