Value, respect, and strive for diversity in editors
This is a really good point, Hans. But I think that's exactly what will help improve diversity of contributors. If we can get away from argumentative people -- regardless of what point they're trying to argue -- we might actually see more growth overall.
If you do a good job of pruning the weeds, you might see a bigger and more diverse garden in the long run.
I agree, of course. But I am afraid the current formulation would reinforce the English Wikipedia's ethos that competence is not required: Every editor must be valued and respected, regardless of competence, and striving for diversity means that the more eccentrically someone behaves the more valued they are. That's how it would be read, I am afraid.
we have to have a process of editor improvement, and coaching. value and respect and hug them, until they forget the first article monomania, and move on to better editing. (and yes punish some) do we need a process of warnings? but the punish first ask question later, is a problem hindering quality editor development.
I guess I'm not sure what you mean by competence. Are we talking about excluding editors who blow it on their first 10 edits?
I think the bigger threat are the editors who stick around for more than 100 edits simply because they're stubborn enough to push their POV, and find more clever ways to game the system.
I'm interested to hear more about your experience at the German Wikipedia. You make it sound very attractive compared to the problems I've seen at the English Wikipedia. But in both cases, the population growth has stabilized -- which is troubling.
Banning editors after their first 10 edits is actually relatively standard even on the English Wikipedia, if all of these have been destructive. I am talking about those who after more than 1000 edits have shown no ability or intent to work withing community norms: Reverting without discussion. Discussing, but only in the form of endlessly repeating a mantra and insulting everybody else. Personalisation of everything. Here is a concrete example of what I mean: en:wikipedia:User:Proofreader77/Two Wikipedia opinion sonnets linked by "civility". This was the user's response to one of many complaints that his eccentric communication style was disruptive. He is indefinitely banned now, after 15,000 edits and countless discussions about his fate. Surely it didn't take so long to understand that he wasn't suitable for the workplace. The problem is that some people think it doesn't matter so long as he is trying to contribue "in good faith". Of course this particular user just thought it was OK and in fact perfectly normal to use up a large part of people's time while they were trying to figure out what he meant. We can tolerate egocentricity and similar problems, but only if its negative effect are in a reasonable relation to the editor's constructive contributions.
Yeah, I find it frustrating that some people can be disruptive for 10,000+ edits, when we can usually get the idea after 1000. We ARE very lenient. I'm not sure how they get away with it. Maybe...
- You get away with it if you do more good than harm. (e.g.: if you've edited even a few articles)
- You get away with it if you have enough defenders to obstruct a consensus. (e.g.: if you've made a few friends)
- You get away with it if you're working in good faith. (e.g.: you show you're on some kind of crusade)
Maybe all of the above? Maybe one of the above?
I'm not sure how to combat this. I do think we're too lenient in some ways, and welcome volunteers who make WP a worse place for everyone. But I also think we need to be more welcoming overall.
Yes, I have also seen many very serious cases of scaring away promising new users. That's probably one of the most important things we must become less tolerant about.
what process would you use to deal with the persistently disruptive editor? what process to encourage new users, and encourage editors to encourage? (i kinda hate to devolving to process, but it's the language of rules for rules lovers; clearly an ethos is not persuasive for all)
We just make recommendations, we don't do the detailed implementation part which is left to each Wikipedia.
Inter-personals issues is one reason why many editors leave the project as mentioned in the Former Contributors Survey Results.
Personally i try to limit use of templates when communicating with a new editors and verbose more in prose in user talk pages.