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Where should the focus be now?

The WER project page contains this, "Editor retention is the concern and proactive effort of retaining contributors, many who leave for various reasons". My interpretation of this is that we should focus on editors who have a history of ongoing contribution. The 'retention' of new editors seems to be a contradiction in terms. At least it would be useful to discuss new editors on a separate thread. I think WP does a fairly good job with new editors. We manage to detect vandals quite quickly. We welcome, mentor and encourage new editors by a variety of methods. The Teahouse is outstanding in this regard. I would like to see all the welcome templates altered to include a link to the Teahouse. Retaining experienced editors seems, in contrast, to be something we need to give more attention to. --Greenmaven (talk) 23:53, 2 December 2013 (UTC)

One of the difficulties with the retention of experienced editors is that many are discouraged after participating in disagreements or confrontations with other editors. It's tricky finding ways to make people feel better without seeming to take part in the dissention. —Anne Delong (talk) 00:21, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
The original focus of Editor Retention was to help editors, old and new with difficult situations and make their experience more positive, thereby retaining them when they might have been discouraged otherwise. Sometimes you actually have to become involved and take part in the "dissention" in order to help.--Mark Miller (talk) 00:35, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
I'd agree with that only to the extent that it helps when outside editors get involved in bridging disputes and adding calm voices. If A is in a battle to the wikideath with B, taking up A's cause to "retain" her is likely to equally discourage B. It disappoints me how often the comments on this page appear to boil down to "the problem is the Bs! If we drove off all the Bs, we'd more easily retain As!" ("admin abuse"/"anti-admin brigade" threads seem particularly bad for this.) I don't mean to trivialize these concerns, which can be serious, but I'm skeptical that we will ever increase editor retention by attacks on Bs, especially when it's hotly debated who exactly the Bs even are.
I think a better approach (speaking purely in editor retention terms here) is usually to remind both A and B that they're valued editors, that there's plenty of work left to be done outside the narrow confines of the dispute, that their dispute is unlikely to be the end of Wikipedia as we know it, and generally to just take a deep breath. Most editors I know who retired did so due to a festering dispute, or weariness from disputes generally, and few of these disputes were actually worth the loss of editor hours and quality contributions we suffered from them (for example, the Infobox wars).
We can't prevent disputes, obviously. But we can try to add calm voices to others' conflicts before they escalate to a heated, potential-quitting level; ask for outside opinions in or learn to step away from our own conflicts before things escalate; and always work to recognize the efforts of other Wikipedians, whether they're under wikistress or not but especially if they are. Just my two cents. -- Khazar2 (talk) 01:50, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
  • I'm pretty sure that when Dennis created this WER project it was not to provide individual editors with a grievance with yet another venue to grind their axe. For that we already have (possibly too many) other noticeboards, help pages, mediation, and dispute resolution venues. Maybe this very attempt over the years to highly compartmentalise all the different kinds of user issues has led to a dilemma of choice of venue for many. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk)
    • No, you're right Kudpung, when Dennis created the project the original page had this: "Editor retention is a project-wide problem, so the focus of this wikiproject is not on individuals". However he, himself changed that:"I also updated that mission statement to make it clear. We do talk about individuals who leave, get updates here when someone leaves, we have lists of missing editors them around here for that matter, but the real focus is still on the larger issues of why and what can we do to fix it." But that is not an excuse for "individual editors with a grievance with yet another venue to grind their axe", or for the continuation of conflicts that simply move the fight from one venue to the next. At any rate, Jack Greenmaven, Dennis did feel that new editors should be assisted: " But yes, we do help some individuals, in particular, new editors that are lost.".--Mark Miller (talk) 07:41, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
      New editors are being helped, but mostly at the Teahouse, not at WER. --Greenmaven (talk) 08:13, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
  • Yes, but the Teahouse is a very specific project consisting of a friendly help page, helping new editors one by one. It is great, but it doesn't have the scope of a Wikiproject like this one, and is just one "tool on the workbench" of Editor Retention. We shouldn't expect its hosts to consider larger issues such as changes to policies or procedures. —Anne Delong (talk) 13:36, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
Exactly. Some ways that we decided to assist new editors was with welcome templates. Some editors don't like to use templates because they are not personal and look sever to many even when they are simple hello's. But a great deal of effort was put into the templates for welcoming new editors and it really would take a full community consensus to change a core part of the project. We purposely decided not to try and be another Teahouse, but to try to be a little more proactive with efforts to encourage new editors that are on the right track with several different methods. We have a Barn Star that was incorporated into the list of general barn stars, {{subst:The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar|message ~~~~}}, which was originally created for John from Idegon (formerly Gtwfan52) when they were asking for something to encourage new editors that they thought were doing a great job. It was created as part of the Editor Retention effort towards new editors. We also created the Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week as an effort to spotlight lesser known and more unappreciated editors, but has since expanded to include all editors, new and the well experienced. It serves the purpose better that way to help network editors to those with experience in many subjects and aspects of Wikipedia editing.--Mark Miller (talk) 21:21, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
The welcome templates are excellent in their present form. Is there any support for adding a link to the Teahouse on one or more of them? --Greenmaven (talk) 22:29, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
I wouldn't oppose this, except the templates are huge, so judicious use of minimal verbiage helps, IMHO. I wonder if WER's job is to steer the majority of the saveable-by-discussion to the teahouse, and to intervene directly, with other methods (email, phone calls, beers) in the almost-too-far-gone situations. --Lexein (talk) 23:49, 3 December 2013 (UTC)
There is a plethora of welcome templates. many of them are standard in the twinkle dropdown, and Twinkle also adds the option of creating your own which will be added to your Twinkle dropdown. See Wikipedia:Welcoming committee for more extensive information, and where perhaps preferably this discussion should be taking place. Welcome templates do however frequently get misused, I regulary come across users who do little else but search new account creations and slap welcomes on them even when there have been zero edits or when the only edits were vandalism or some other inappropriate contributions. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 01:26, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
We should discuss our welcoming templates here. They were created and meant for use by our members, however if the original author and proposer of these templates, User:Buster7 does not object I will not either.--Mark Miller (talk) 03:09, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
I don't object to changing them. We can create some new ones w/ mention of the Teahouse. Welcomes are like a "travelers guide" that the newbie gets at the border. Lots of links because we don't know where they are headed...what doors they will open...what action will catch their fancy. Like Anne, I too referred to the Welcome to figure out where help was available. Without it, I think I would have given up after the first Road Hazard. ```Buster Seven Talk 08:51, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Some of the welcome templates do more than just welcome. The one I received when I was knew had a number of helpful links which I visited frequently until I found my way around. Wikipedia's backstage is a maze, and I am far from having visited all of its corners. —Anne Delong (talk) 03:33, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
Yes, ours is meant to show links to what we felt were the most important places for newcomers to see in order to make the first contributions as close to guidelines as possible to avoid the normal trauma of editing blind on your first day. I am still concerned that we may have packed too much into it and made it look too formal. What do you think of ours in comparison to your original welcome Anne Delong?
{{Subst:Template:WikiProject Editor Retention/Welcome}} Template:WikiProject Editor Retention/Welcome 04:28, 4 December 2013 (UTC)
I see the primary mission of WP:RETENTION as working to change $insert_infrastructure_here, so that use of noticeboards, and WP:BATTLEGROUNDs to the wikideath, and the factional A-vs-B troubles, gradually begin to decline. Of course, that is no easy row to hoe. The focus of the teahouse is on being an immediate source of instant gratification. If you are a new editor, and you have a quick question, the teahouse is the place to ask it. What is the infrastructure-question here? Well, see above: how to best drive newcomers to the teahouse, and more generally, how to best welcome them. My approach:
Talkpage table of contents, plus useful links. For fast answers to quick questions, try the friendly folks at WP:TEAHOUSE, they are open all hours

Welcome!

Hello, WikiProject Editor Retention, and welcome to Wikipedia! Thank you for your contributions. I hope you like the place and decide to stay. Here are a few links to pages you might find helpful:

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions, ask me on my talk page, or ask your question on this page and then place {{help me}} before the question. Again, welcome!

new talkpage section: howdy
Hello, you can call me 74 -- noticed your good work on $article, wanted to let you know I added $some_new_change that I think makes the article even better. Feel free to message me on my talkpage if you need anything (click 'talk' next to my name, then click 'new section' and type your message and click save). Thanks for improving wikipedia. ~~~~

What would be an even bigger improvement on the WP:TEAHOUSE infrastructure? Well, my long-term plan is to replace the bewildering forest of hyperlinks in the lefthand panel with a live chat-window which hooks straight into the teahouse. What better way to let beginners know there is a place they can get fast answers to quick questions, than to put the thing right where they can see it? Similarly, if they get a note on their talkpage, they can get a little chat-notification right in the "teahouse sub-panel" over on the lefthand side. Even better would be two chat-panels... one for article-related discussions, which follows their editing and reading interests, and the other for meta-article-related discussions, which is where the teahouse and user-talkpage and similar things would go. p.s. Before anybody asks, I don't think we need permission from WMF to create this useful feature, and I don't think the lefthand side of the page is exempt from WP:BOLD.  :-)   Hope this helps. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 17:00, 8 December 2013 (UTC)

Note

  • I probably won't be able to follow up so please pardon me if I don't see any reply. I'm busy in real life but saw this and wanted to make one thing clear: The Teahouse is the right place to refer new users. When someone falls through the cracks, or isn't able to get the help they need there (for any reason), then WER members have generally come in to help as individuals, not so much as a group function. It is still The Teahouse's job to work with new editors and 99% of the time, they do the best job. We tend to help the other 1%, not because of our mission but because of our nature. The core goal was to work on systemic issues rather than individual issues, but being human, when we can help, we generally have. And sometimes this means discussing/debating individual issues to get a better understanding and find consensus. Of course, the group can always change the scope, this is just what the scope was originally. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:45, 31 December 2013 (UTC)
  • The core goal was to work on systemic issues rather than individual issues. Agree that *is* still the core goal. But there is disagreement about what, specifically, the systemic issues *are*. Retention of new editors with 5 edits under their belt, is what I thought the main goal was. The best way to do that, is to help systematically improve AfC and the Teahouse, methinks, by improving the wiki-tools. But plenty of folks around here think I'm nuts.  :-)   Some of them see the main goal as retaining super-editors with 10k edits total, or at least, put the main focus on retaining veryActives with 99+edits/mo. I'm in favor of that also, but see it as a byproduct of making the environment good for the 5+edits/mo folks (win-win). Kudpung is worried that admins are under too much pressure. Kumioko is worried that RfA needs reform. WSC thinks we need more stats. Among other things. What are the current goals, and what is the prioritized list that we should focus upon? Honest question. What are people here for? Should we have a WP:POLL to help focus our efforts, on specific targets? 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:18, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
  • I also thought that WER's mission was to work on systemic issues regarding the retention of editors, whether new or not. However, as 74.192.84.101 points out correctly there is disagreement here about what the systemic issues are. I am not familiar with wp:Poll , but before we even go there what issues will be put on the Poll? XOttawahitech (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Editor of the Week award

By a strange coincidence, I have discovered this thread on ANI: Wikipedia:ANI#Award_by_the_Wikipedia:WikiProject_Editor_Retention_of_.27Editor_of_the_Week.27_to_User:Gaijin42 It was started by user: AndyTheGrump whom I do not remember ever seeing here. However, I do share Andy's concern, since I do not remember seeing much of this mysterious body which hands out Editor of the Week awards. I am not trying to rain on anyone's parade, but I am concerned about potential damage to the reputation of WER.

Can someone please illuminate how the Editor of the Week taskforce(?) works:

  • Who runs it?
  • Who nominates editors?
  • Who decides who should get an award?
  • Where can we watch this process in action?

Thanks in advance, XOttawahitech (talk) 20:30, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

@ User:Ottawahitech...Above you say, "...since I do not remember seeing much of this mysterious body which hands out Editor of the Week awards..." Please check out WER Archive 6 from the early days of WER/Editor of the Week. Of the 67 threads, 15 are specifically about Editor of the Week (over 20% of the total). Most were announcements of who was receiving the award. Please note that you were active in other discussions during that period. I can't say that all the awardees have been announced since then but I have repeatedly made suggestions over the past year, using quote boxes and other methods to draw the attention of editors visiting these WER pages. I'm sorry you didn't notice them. Many were my attempts to get some of the 150 members of WER to visit the awardees page and offer congratulations. ```Buster Seven Talk 15:30, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Um, why should the fact that I've not previously been involved with this project be relevant? It hands out awards which purport to be made on the behalf of the Wikipedia community as a whole, and as such should expect to be subject to commentary - positive and negative - from anyone. AndyTheGrump (talk) 20:37, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
It doesn't matter that you have never been a part of this project before, but it does matter that the decisions of the project are for the project to make as a whole, whether you officially join or not is not important, but that you participate is otherwise you might not be happy with the result. Andy, you state above:"It hands out awards which purport to be made on the behalf of the Wikipedia community as a whole". That is not accurate and the award itself, in its self contained little box, is clearly labled as "Project Editor Retention, Editor of the Week". However...YOU BET...everyone is welcome to discuss the nominations. You may be negative about a nomination and !vote against if you feel a reason to. I have. Why wouldn't you be able to?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:21, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
As to credibility, there are at least 42 editors who might disagree.
```Buster Seven Talk 21:42, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
  • And how is the nomination verified? Who checks that the claims made in the nomination are in any way in accordance with reality? There seems to be nothing to indicate that the process is anything but a rubber-stamp approval - and in the recent case of Gaijin42, it has to be suggested that such approval was at minimum highly questionable. Or to put it more bluntly, the claim that Gaijin42 "Fosters neutrality" appears (from the evidence submitted at ArbCom) to be entirely contrary to the opinions of multiple respected long-term contributors. Frankly, if awards are to be handed out in such a dubious manner, based on nothing but a rubber-stamp process which at best involves a dozen people, and in practice seems to have involved only two (a nominator Doctree, a seconder, Buster7, who later notified Gaijin42 of the award), perhaps the community might legitimately ask whether we would be better off not permitting this project to make such awards at all. 22:18, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
  • OK, so some background: Dennis Brown, the founder of this project, WER, initially proffered the suggestion that this project should recognize those editors who so often go unrecognized for their "under the radar" contributions. About one year ago, I took on the initiative, drafting a project in my userspace, and then it moved into project space, under the WER banner, which seemed to be reasonably well "consensused" at the time by those who had chimed in on discussions. Since then, the two editors most heavily involved have been myself, presenting the awards on Sundays, and Buster7, handling some of the template work and clerking. Nominations are made by any editor, and then seconded by any other editor. The purpose of EotW is not to proclaim someone a god of editing, not to be a heavily bureaucratized process, but rather to offer thanks to an editor who often does not receive it, but deserves it, to help increase their morale on editing. It works. Check Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week/Recipient response for evidence of that. Have there been a few people along the way who have been nominated but not received the award for various reasons? Yes. Have we received criticism after distributing an award to an editor who someone else thinks is undeserving? Yes. Have either of the two aforementioned circumstances hindered the good that the award does, increasing the morale of editors, making them feel thanked and appreciated for the work they do that flies under the radar? Absolutely not. The award is not perfect, but has a lot of positive effects. Getting rid of it for the reasons mentioned by others above would be misguided because:
  • a.) The award confers no special power on the recipient, and rather seeks only to "brighten their day", which, per the recipient response page linked above, it largely does.
  • b.) The award's low-key "confirmation process" ensures that recipients are loosely vetted by two editors, which prevents a blocked contributor from receiving the award, however does not mandate that recipients be "wiki-angels", which admittedly some recipients are not. Not being a "wiki-angel" does not mean that one does not make valuable contributions to the encyclopedia. One need not be perfect to be named the WER editor of the week.
  • c.) It is quite obvious to anyone who bothers to look in the URL of their browser that this is not necessarily a "community-wide" award, as it is within the scope of WER. It helps to retain editors, the overarching goal of WER. As such, the award is not presented on behalf of the community at large, rather on behalf of WER, which the award appropriately states "(courtesy of the Wikipedia Editor Retention Project)".
Anyone interested in the development and facilitating of this award can view the history at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week/Nominations. What started as a group process has basically atrophied down to two editors. I was the one who vetted Gaijin42 back in November of 2013 when EditorDocTree nominated him. There was nothing in his history to make me question Doc's nomination. Needless to say, I am more than a little taken-a-back by taunts and criticisms for an endeavour (the award) that is completely well-intentioned and positive. I will continue to do my best with the awards until the Community tells me to stop. I doubt that will happen. ```Buster Seven Talk 22:36, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
Does the 'history' you 'vetted' not include being blocked for edit-warring concerning the very subject for which he was being nominated? [4] As for whether the community will ask that this award be discontinued, I'd suggest that they may well decide so if such poor judgement recurs. AndyTheGrump (talk) 22:47, 30 January 2014 (UTC)
Please try to not breathe to loud while you are looking over my shoulder. ```Buster Seven Talk 22:53, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Nothing in the original charter of WER said we would only help people who have never been blocked. Never have we said that Editor of the Week should only be given to saints. No one is perfect, especially me. It isn't a "seal of approval from Jimbo". It isn't a bureaucratic task, nor an officially sanctioned "award" by the WMF. Any individual editor may go out on their own volition and offer weekly awards and call them anything they want. Some actually do that now. That it is done under WER only means the consensus of WER involved persons agrees it is a good idea, and anyone can seek consensus for changes to it. If you think it needs changing, the best place to start is by participating in the system itself, as to give you an understanding how it works. Most of the time, we have aimed for finding gnomes who quietly go about keeping the place clean, but we don't have a lot of rules around here. On purpose. The reactions that I have seen fill me confidence that it is a worthwhile program. If you want perfection, a Wiki is a terrible place to hang out. Instead, we just try to get it right most of the time. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 23:11, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Agree w/ User:Intothatdarkness. I also think EofW is misguided for several reasons, but I won't go into them. One thing though ... the original purpose seems to have wandered. (E.g. nominating admins; e.g. awarding Malleus [did someone honestly think Malleus doesn't receive often enough recognition re his editing skills and work?! or that an EofW award could to any degree whatever influence a theoretical future decision by him to leave the project?!; neither notion computes]). Ihardlythinkso (talk) 23:38, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

Surely even I can be an editor of the week after seven years here can't I? Or is the reward reserved only for your mates? And who can say whether it will affect any decision I might make in the future? Eric Corbett 00:39, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
Sure you can Eric. It was probably around the time you were nominated that the discussion to broaden the award was made. I recall I objected on the basis that the award was Initially intended for those that go unrecognized and my argument was simply that you...were pretty recognized for your work. OK both in bad ways and in good ways, but you are a well recognized editor. But your work was what gained you a nomination and the award is to recognize GOOD WORK. Vetting does NOT have anything to do with whether anyone has had ANY sanctions of ANY kind. Some one is nominated and then editors engage in a short discussion and !vote period.
I don't understand Andy's confusion here. This is a Barnstar. Nothing more. It may go to anyone the group wants it to go to. Editors took the time to create an award...and that creates drama?. Is that what bothers people? Is there something wrong with {{subst:The Excellent New Editor's Barnstar|message ~~~~}}? I nominated it through the proper page, it was !voted on in the same manner that all such decisions are made on Wikipedia and accepted. Is there anything wrong with that? That is also a WER award. Is it the recognition of those that others don't feel deserve it? Gosh...then !vote and don't complain with that old adage "I didn't know about the discussion". No one was hiding it and it was so heavily advertised I see nothing to show it wasn't as transparent as any other such project award. Vetting? This isn't a political nomination. It is a barn star in a box from this project. What's the problem folks?--Mark Miller (talk) 01:11, 31 January 2014 (UTC)
That ANI discussion was closed with just about the same opinion as I just gave above. I see no controversy here.--Mark Miller (talk) 01:23, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, I think this is much ado about absolutely nothing. Someone got overly excited because someone they don't like got recognition from a project. So what? That recognition doesn't hurt anyone, nor does it grant the recipient super powers or authoritah. Someone else tried to create mystery about a process that isn't especially mysterious and is, in the great scheme of things, pretty harmless. Buster's done a nice job with the process as far as I can tell, and that's what's important. Whether I like it or not doesn't really matter, and I certainly don't have to agree with (or disagree with) whoever happens to get EotW. So can we just move along now? Intothatdarkness 15:54, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Some of the back pages if anyone is interested

```Buster Seven Talk 14:45, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Wikipedia talk:Editor review#Mark Historical?

Note that there is a proposal to mark the page historical, as it has not received any attention for months. KonveyorBelt 16:32, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

Non-free files

Stolen's a strong word. It's copyrighted content that the owner wasn't paid for.

I came across this conversation with a new editor coming over from the Google Art Project and followed the links in it. I was disappointed with the response, which while possibly technically correct (I can't honestly tell) comes across to a new editor with all the charm and warmth of Robocop. Needless to say, the new editor is considering retiring.

I've got to say that our policy on image copyright is one of the most widely misunderstood and problematic areas for new editors. So often I see questions along the lines of "why did you delete my image?" or comments like "this article sucks - it needs pictures" and I really do wonder why Wikipedia bothers with images at all when a google image search gives the layman user, who doesn't know about CC-BY-SA, much less care about it, so much more. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont) 15:16, 30 January 2014 (UTC)

I followed up the image file and found this comment "All you need to do is to visit the place where the painting is located and take a photo of it. What part of v:Museum photography is it that you don't understand? --Stefan2 (talk) 14:22, 29 January 2014 (UTC)". I have also been offended by Stefan2 when uploading images recently. It's time he got reprimanded by an admin. --Greenmaven (talk) 21:44, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

My experience and why I am not going to edit Wikipedia

tl:dr - editors reverted my good faith edits; put macro-warnings on my user page; didn't bother reading the references I provided after they asked for them; and didn't fix any of the other problems with the article because they were concentrating on preventing me from editing the page.

Fuller version: international and law enforcement agencies are using the term "images of child sexual abuse" instead of the phrase "child porn". Several wikipedia articles discuss this and use the new term, and have reliable sources for that information. I found a page that didn't include the new term anywhere. I thought this would be a good place to start a serious edit and clean up of an article. The article is bad, has some error-macros at the top of it, is not much linked to in WP (and thus isn't an important high traffic article but a nice quiet corner). I started by changing a few -but not all!- instances of the phrase "child porn" to "images of child sexual abuse". I then started a talk page section explaining what I had done, and why. I included an edit summary.

That edit was reverted. The person reverting asked for a reliable source. I reverted back, and replied that the other wikipedia pages on the topic already included reliable sources. I was reverted again, with a macro-warning put on my page about unproductive edits.

What I would have preferred: an editor sees the change. They don't revert, but they discuss the changes on the talk page. If they think sources are needed they should look for those cites. It is very easy to hit revert and think that you are helping the project. But looking for sources is important (and was mentioned in the error macro on the page) so it's better to look for sources. The editor should have noticed that I am a new editor and offered to help with the bizarre and complicated formatting for references. Or the editor could have made any other good faith exits to the page to help clean it up.

Now the situation is that you have several edits to a page taking time and effort, but the page is still in the same poor state it was in before. And you have editors who think they've helped the project when really they've achieved nothing positive. And you have me - I now dislike Wikipedia intensely. This is not a controversial change. It was not an attempt to remove all instances of the term "child porn" from a page, just to insert a few occurances of the term "images of child sexual abuse" which is helpful because it's the term used by interpol and unicef etc and helps public search for and find more information.

I present my experience for some meta discussion. I am not asking for pitchforks for any involved editors who were acting in good faith, although totally unconstructive. And there is no way I am going to continue to edit WP.

My talk page and edits history contains all the information. There's not too much to look through.

--Barepunts (talk) 14:58, 13 January 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry for your experience, but you acted explicitly contrary to the policies. You were pointed this fact out by several editors in good standing, but instead you have chosen not to reply and discuss with them, not to read the policies, not to try changing the policies but to leave Wikipedia giving us your opinion on how the policies should look like. No, they are not like this, and there are some good reasons for that. Again, sorry that your experience did not match your expectations.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:32, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
hi, i logged out and forget my pass!! I'm not sure i understand tou. Bold revert discuss, right? So i boldly edit a page. Someone reverts that change and asls for sources. They then leave. I provide sources (although not in a great form. I honestly didn't know how to do that on the mobile version of the site). I then revert the changes back in because the only complaint -no cites- has been addressed and reverting is easier than re typing all the changes. That change is reverted and someone gives me a macro-warning about unconstructive edits. Well, that's just annoying and wrong because these were not test edits they were real edits, so I revert and leave a message on that user's page. I am correctig an incorrect revert. But this has pushed me over some limit, so someone else reverts and asks for sources. They don't notice that sources are aleady in place. I don't understand what you mean when you say I havn't spoken to people - i have. I have left messages on their talk pages or on the edit page of the article and in the summary text box. The chain of events is less clear than it could be because someone changed the order of some but not all of the posts on my talk page. So, the oy thing that people asked for to make my edits stick were sources, which i tried to provide. At that point there should be no reason to stop the edit, right? And if there is someone could put it on the talk page. No one did. So why aren't the edits there? I don't know what you mean when you say that I am asking for wp to change policy. Where do i say that? I do ask that people look for sources before slapping macro-warnings on the page or reverting. Especially if the page already has a macro saying that sources are needed - given the choice of a) reverting the edits of someone and doing nothing else to get spurces or b)helping that new editor to put the sources they've provided into thw article it is clear that B is preferable. Notice that anyone responding to the helpme macro on my talk pages by asking me to provide sources is doing so after I had provided sources! And none of them is helping me to put those into the article. --82.132.236.23 (talk) 20:59, 13 January 2014 (UTC)
Reviewing your edits, I do not see where you ever provided a source. Here you say that they exist, but that is hardly the same thing. Our established editing practice is to be bold and make an edit, and if another editor disagrees then they let you know that it needs discussion by reverting the edit. At that point, the content should not be re-added to the article until there is consensus to do so. Calling other editors lazy for following this process is unhelpful. As for the use of communication via automated tools; I see on your talk page that when you engaged in the nonconstructive behavior (ie edit warring) that we see a lot, you received semi-automated messages. When you asked a specific question with a helpme template, you received personal, non-template replies. VQuakr (talk) 17:36, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
Barepunts, I'm sorry. I've been around since March 2006, and the fact of the matter is, sometimes Wikipedia kind of sucks, as you've found out. It's kind of sad that something called "Edition Retention" just gives you bureaucratic blah-blah about the treatment you've received. I don't really know whether 'child porn' or 'images of sexual abuse' is actually the more appropriate term, but you definitely got the not supposed to ( WP:BITE ) but it happens anyway "newbie bite." If it's any consolation, Wikipedia is also non-deterministic, so if you edit some other article it's possible things will go better. NE Ent 00:00, 18 January 2014 (UTC)
I've been around a few years myself and in that time I have been able to talk a few new editors "off the ledge". Days ago, when Barepunts first came to WP:WER, I looked into the disagreement and was reluctant to get involved for 2 reasons. 1) I did not like that Barepunts called other editors lazy. 2) Barepunts was getting good advice but it did not seems as though they were listening...or that they wanted to listen. They wanted to be right about being offended. Had Editor Barepunts been a bit more collaborative and congenial in his/her demeanor, the article Legal status of Internet pornography would have been changed from "child porn" to the more graphic and descriptive, and (in the words of Barepunts) more prefered "images of child sexual abuse". When looking for someone to blame if Barepunts chooses not to edit here anymore, I suggest a peek into a mirror will show the real culprit. ```Buster Seven Talk 20:44, 22 January 2014 (UTC)
Buster7, it may not be WP:NICE to say that when person $foo works hard to write up some changes to an article, which takes twenty minutes, and then person $baz clicks the revert button and the WP:TEMPLAR button, which takes 20 seconds, that the second person is lazy. They are just following WP:BURDEN to the letter, right? But let us see what sort of effort would be required, to actually help $foo accomplish their goal, which is to improve the article. They give a very specific phrase. They say interpol and other police forces use the phrase. They say the sources are numerous.
  If all that's true they why is $foo so lazy, right? That's what WP:BURDEN says — the entire burden is on $foo. But if $foo is a beginner, then finding the wheat-from-the-chaff refs, and formatting them in bizarre curly-braces, and inserting them into the article in the pre-existing ref-style, is waaaay more than the twenty minutes that $foo already devoted to improving the article. What about for us, folks that know how to do such things already, practically in our sleep? On your marks, get set, go. 42 after the hour. www.duckduckgo.com Several hits in the top ten. Wrap in ref-tags. Done.[1][2][3] 44 after the hour. Including a bathroom-break.  :-)   Now, that's two minutes of my life I'll never get back.

References

  1. ^ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22933333
  2. ^ http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/18/uk-us-dark-web-online-child-abuse-internet
  3. ^ https://www.fbi.gov/newark/press-releases/2014/union-county-man-admits-distributing-images-of-child-sexual-abuse
  But surely, doing that search, and finding the refs that I'm demanding in the article, is improving the encyclopedia, correct? And just as surely, what if that two minutes had been spent by the first person to WP:NINJA-revert $foo (and I'm not picking on Squeakbox here... I've personally seen them edit elsewhere before and they're level-headed and a solid contributor... nor for that matter am I unhappy with other folks pinged herein... all acting in good faith... following our wikiCultural norms... BUT THE NORMS THEMSELVES ARE WRONG if we ever again want beginner retention). WP:GOOG, and there would have been no edit-warring, there would have been no frustrated posts to WP:RETENTION, there would have been no name-calling, and the article would have been improved. Buster7, are you still working on the wikiMonk essay? Can you *please* make sure, that wikiMonks have 'Thou Shalt Get Thy Hands Dirty' as one of their commandments?
  Here is what Barepunts says:
  1. "Editors reverted my good faith edits." Green tickY
  2. "Editors put macro-warnings template-spam on my user talkpage." Green tickY
  3. "Editors didn't bother reading the refs I provided a wikilink to after they asked for them." Green tickY
  4. "Editors didn't fix[6] any of the other problems with the article because they were concentrating on preventing me from editing the page." Green tickY
 Question: What's to debate? The beginning editor found the editing-environment so bloody hostile, as soon as they encountered a page with *any* other wikipedians they decided within nine hours and 26 minutes that they quoth "now hate wikipedia" unquoth and therefore ergo will thus head for greener pastures. More or less this exact same thing happens every day, with slight variations.
10 good-faith edits, 9 days on-wiki, 8 content-editors, 7 project-members, 6 stiki twinkles, 5 abuse-tahhhhhhhhhhhhhhgs, 4 ninja-reverts, 3 articles, 2 edits kept, and a boht-spam leaves zero beginners retained

DAY ZERO OF THREE

  • bp1 01:39, 5th Barepunts (-314)‎ Tecopa, California ‎ (Took out some informal chatty content) (current) (Tag: Mobile edit)
  • bp2 01:44, 5th Barepunts (-1)‎ Glenn Neville Ford ‎ (Todied words) (current) (Tag: Mobile edit)

DAY ONE OF THREE, SESSION ONE

  • bp3 01:42, 11th Barepunts (+45)‎ Legal status of Internet pornography ‎ (Used modern preferred term images of child sexual abuse) (Tag: Mobile edit)
  • deny1 01:52, 11th SqueakBox (-45)‎ (Undid revision 590160958 by Barepunts (talk)) FIRST CONTACT
  • bp4 01:53, 11th Barepunts (+353)‎ Talk:Legal status of Internet pornography ‎ (→‎Please start using preferred term "images of child sexual abuse" rather than child porn.: new section)
  • bspam0 01:54, 11th SineBot m(+311)‎ (Signing comment by Barepunts)
  • link0 02:26, 11th SqueakBox (+217)‎ (→resp)

DAY ONE OF THREE, SESSION TWO

  • bp5 03:33, 11th Barepunts (+273)‎ Talk:Legal status of Internet pornography ‎ (→‎Please start using preferred term "images of child sexual abuse" rather than child porn.)
  • (( bp5 alluded to three existing refs, already used on-wiki, in child porn article. ))
  • (( Found them in sentence#2, for the exact phrase "child sexual abuse images", w/ cites to books from 2004/2006/2008. ))
  • bp6 03:37, 11th Barepunts (+545)‎ Talk:Legal status of Internet pornography ‎ (→‎Please start using preferred term "images of child sexual abuse" rather than child porn.)
  • bp7 03:39, 11th Barepunts (+45)‎ Legal status of Internet pornography ‎ (Squeakbox should attempt to find sources before bliny revertig good faith edits. Undid revision 590161962 by SqueakBox (talk))
  • deny2 03:40, 11th Malik Shabazz (-45)‎ (Undid revision 590171656 by Barepunts, translating back from euphemism to English)
  • deny3 03:43, 11th Malik Shabazz (+419)‎ (→reply)
  • (( Despite the assertion that only "child porn" is proper English, in fact the disputed article already had[7] the phrase "child sexual abuse material" ... under the Australia-subsection. ))
  • tspam1 03:45, 11th Malik Shabazz (+1,345)‎ (Welcome to Wikipedia! (TW))

DAY ONE OF THREE, SESSION THREE

  • bp8 10:52, 11th Barepunts (+670)‎ Talk:Legal status of Internet pornography ‎ (→‎Please start using preferred term "images of child sexual abuse" rather than child porn.)
  • bp9 10:54, 11th Barepunts (+45)‎ Legal status of Internet pornography ‎ (Images of child sexual abuse is not a euphimism!!! Undid revision 590171727 by Malik Shabazz (talk))
  • bp10 10:57, 11th Barepunts (+428)‎ Talk:Legal status of Internet pornography ‎ (→‎Please start using preferred term "images of child sexual abuse" rather than child porn.)
  • deny4 11:00, 11th Arunsingh16 m(-45)‎ (Reverted 1 edit by Barepunts identified as test/vandalism using STiki)
  • tspam2 11:00, 11th Arunsingh16 (+720)‎ (User warning for unconstructive editing found using STiki)
  • tspam3 12:13, 11th Malik Shabazz (+1,608)‎ (Warning: Edit warring on Legal status of Internet pornography. (TW))

DAY ONE OF THREE, SESSION FOUR

  • bp11, 22:53, 11th Barepunts (+326)‎ User talk:Arunsingh16 ‎
  • bp12, 23:08, 11th Barepunts (+1,331)‎ User talk:Barepunts ‎ (Tag: Mobile edit) "NOW HATES WIKIPEDIA"
  • link1, 23:36, 11th Ronhjones (+401)‎ (→‎Not a nice Welcome: reply)
  • link2, 23:54, 11th MrScorch6200 (+288)‎ (→‎Not a nice Welcome: Reply to help)
  • link3, 23:56, 11th Gryllida (+595)‎ (helped («too large scope to be accepted without community discussion»))
  • tspam4, 09:13, 12th Arunsingh16 (+7,042)‎ (Welcome to Wikipedia! (TW))
  • link4, 09:13, 12th Arunsingh16 (+571)‎ (→‎User Barepunts' commet: Re)
  • tspam5, 09:14, 12th Arunsingh16 m(+258)‎ (Talkback (User talk:Arunsingh16#User Barepunts' commet) (TW))

DAY TWO OF THREE

  • bp13 18:18, 12th Barepunts (+769)‎ User talk:Barepunts ‎ (Tag: Mobile edit)
  • link5 18:40, 12th Yngvadottir (+1,073) (→‎does wikipedia research new editor retention?: Response suggesting Teahouse - and citing sources on an article talk page. Leaving help template in place in case someone else has useful advice.)
  • link6 19:03, 12th DUCKISJAMMMY (+1,684)‎ (helped user and put new sections at the bottom)

DAY THREE OF THREE

  • bp14 14:58, 13th Barepunts (+3,075)‎ Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention ‎ (→‎My experience and why I am not going to edit Wikipedia: new section)
Is two minutes of WP:GOOG effort to verify sources exist before ninja-reverting really that big a deal, compared to this sorry saga, of a dozen edits by the beginner trying to make a simple utterly-verifiable change, thereby provoking two dozen edits by other folks, keeping them from doing it, pointing them to authoritah, and in general leaving mainspace in suspended animation? WP:BURDEN is on my side here to the hilt, I'll note. "...try to provide an inline citation yourself before considering whether to remove or tag it." That is a policy sentence-fragment. It links to WP:PRESERVE which is *also* policy. "Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them if you can't. Emphasis.in.the.policy.!
  Did we try? Are we wikipedicans, or are we wikipedicants? Pillar four says to be nice; does nobody else think that must mean, at least just a wee teensy little bit, to help other editors? That's all Barepunts was asking, methinks. I'm a big fan of WP:CHOICE and all, and a huge fan of WP:IAR, but that green box doesn't look very WP:NICE to me, and WP:PRESERVE got skipped right over, and for what? There has *got* to be a way to improve the encyclopedia, where this kind of sad story just stops happening all the time. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 08:42, 25 January 2014 (UTC)


"put macro-warnings on my user page"

@Barepunts: I checked your talk page and noticed that I also had a similar experience with the same editor (see:User_talk:Ottawahitech#Speedy deletion nomination of Meredith Stark). XOttawahitech (talk) 15:45, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

I am not happy with User:Arunsingh16's behavior - I complained to him earlier this month about reverting an editor without an explanation. This doesn't mean that Barepunts behavior was correct of course. Dougweller (talk) 17:01, 17 January 2014 (UTC)
User:Arunsingh16 received several warnings in rapid succession regarding his overuse of automated tools and seems to have backed off now. I agree that if he picks up with rapid-fire reverts using STiki as a rollback substitute again he may need to be banned from using any tools at all. In this specific case, really the only wrong thing he did was to incorrectly identify edit warring as vandalism [8]. VQuakr (talk) 17:36, 17 January 2014 (UTC)

Break: decipher the hidden list above

I was mentioned in a list above. What is it about and what is your feedback on my participation? Thanks. --Gryllida (talk) 11:32, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Hello Gryllida, my feedback is, in a nutshell, #1) I'm sad that Barepunts went from wikithusiasm to hating wikipedian in nine hours, #2) nobody involved therein did anything outside community norms, and #3) that therefore the norms ought be tweaked, so as to be less painful for beginning editors. In your case, you arrived to late (Barepunts gave up in their 23:08 message to which you replied), which of course is not your fault. I also arrived too late.
  But perhaps we can arrive sooner, in future cases, where new editors arrive? Barepunts edited two articles on the fifth, and got no feedback. Basically, my question for you is, when you look at the edits in the green-box, 14 from the beginning-editor Barepunts and ~25 from other wikipedians, what could we have done better, to avoid frustration for all parties? *My* frustration is with the outcome, not with any of the folks individually involved. That's what this is about. WP:RETENTION tends to focus more on admin-retention, and on long-time-contributor retention, but I'm additionally interested in beginner-retention. Barepunts had potential, in my book, and it would be a shame if we lose future editors with potential, due to the same kind of norms-malfunction. Appreciate your time, thanks. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 11:54, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Be more catalytic is all I can suggest to add to the norms, something everyone, including newcomers, should like to keep in mind. --Gryllida (talk) 12:41, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
* Be catalytic in your wikiquette.
* If a newcomer is good-faith, they'll take a timely hint; do not hand-hold.
* To get things done, make reasonably small and balanced steps.
* Do not do more work for them, than catalyzing needs.
* Be relaxed, stay open-minded, pay attention to the details, give positive feedback, give discrete criticism.
Wow, good stuff. So I went ahead and swiped some of the steps from Gryllida's essay, and pasted them here. That sounds like an effective wikiCulture. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:22, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
@ 74. Somewhere else, in another conversation with another editor about another issue, having nothing at all to do with User:Barepunts, Editor Gryllida says, "...., he may as-well just accept such response on his/her learning curve of the Wikipedia environment." Good advice for new editors. Barepunts over-reacted. Any pain he/she felt was self-inflicted. Granted, had one of the 25 edits from other Wikipedians been a bit more specific as to what Barepunts needed to do ("Go to the other articles that use the term images of child sexual abuse, lift (copynpaste) the references used to verify the preferred status and put them in use here."), Barepunts may have stayed calm, done the work themselves, got a little self-education, and none of this kerfuffle would have happened. Many editors involved themselves in this matter before Barepunts left. Barepunts definitely had potential. They just refused to go thru the learning curve...unlike most new editors that get thru the "boot camp" of early editing. Attracting and keeping editors is a huge challenge for us all but having a collaborative temperment has some bearing on who deserves this enormous expenditure of time and effort. There was something in Barepunts way of being that made me wonder. ```Buster Seven Talk 19:26, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Buster7, since I already know you, I'm gonna rip you down.  :-)   Plus point out that little "tag mobile" in the summary-logs above, which is WP:WikiSpeak for "cut-n-paste & punctuation ARE IMPOSSIBLY HARD". Hope you have on your flameproof wikiKnight suit today, and I still do thank you for improving wikipedia, even though in this case you are sooo wwwwrrrrrooonnggg. ;-)   — 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:22, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
editor B leaves, disgusted at our pain-inducing wikiCulture C... Which is at fault, B or C... and is C optimal for improving the encyclopedia?

  "Barepunts over-reacted. Any pain he/she felt was self-inflicted." Begin the really-helpful-WP:SARCASM. Sure, if barepunts were a better person, they *could* have stayed calm in the face of our wikiCulture: ninja-revert and template-spam. Sure, if barepunts was not so lazy, they could have bought a REAL computer with a physical keyboard, and learned how to format refs, which is nigh-impossible on a mobile-app, but that was barepunt's choice to edit with sub-standard hardware. Sure, if barepunts REALLY wanted to improve wikipedia, they would have been willing to walk barefoot through burning coals, undergo ritual hazing from SineBot, read five bazillion policy pages, and seek wider consensus by learning about our helpful, friendly, straightforward noticeboard system for wise thoughtful dispute resolution. So endeth the /sarc.

  Being serious here, Barepunts felt this was a painful editing environment, which of course *we* have created, and that furthermore by our inaction *we* are sustaining. Are we sure that we are not shooting ourselves in the foot? What is our target number, for active 5+ editors per million unique-readers-in-a-month? The NE Ent says don't be hasty, and points out that we have ~125k people that made at least one edit during the past month. But of course, many of those are one-off vandals, one-time-spambots, and such. The better number is people who made 5+edits in the past month, which peaked at 50k (for enWiki) in 2007, and has been steadily falling since. That decline isn't because Barepunts was disgusted at the wikiCulture, it is because that feeling of disgust is widely shared amongst all beginning-editors as a group, and furthermore, must be shared by the existing editors who are choosing to leave more often than they choose to stay-and-bring-friends.

  We created the WP:BUREAUCRACY, and we are all capable of living with it, by definition. But does that mean a bureaucracy is the BEST way to improve & maintain the encyclopedia? I submit to you it does not. Barepunts did not make the WP:CHOICE to live in our wikiverse, under the current edit-conditions. They left, despite wanting to stay. To me, that says our wikiverse is built wrong and that we should fix our wikiCulture, so that instead of using all our edits passively *preventing* barepunts from their goal of improving the encyclopedia in a way we disagreed with in some small facet, we should have collaboratively *helped* improve the encyclopedia with barepunts. That's policy! That's the pillars!

  But it's not what happens on the ground. What happens on the ground, is revert template revert boht revert template warning template disgustquit. Barepunts was disgusted that we would treat people thataway. That is *not* an over-reaction. Barepunts decided other websites were more fun and therefore left. That is *not* self-inflicted pain, that is the refusal to cause oneself further self-inflicted pain... which means, of course, that the rest of us here are either masochists, or don't find byzantine bureaucracy painful.  :-)   Harsh demanding not-my-job-to-be-nice wikiCulture is what drove barepunts away. What is the larger purpose of inflicting that wikiCulture upon barepunts, in terms of improving they encyclopedia? Is that the *optimal* way to go about the task of improving the encyclopedia?

Heck with barepunts, why do we inflict this wikiCulture upon ourselves? Let's change it, and stop driving people away, who could easily learn to be savvy good-faith contributors, given just a wee bit more of an actively-collaborative editing-environment. I don't think I'm talking crazy here; our boot-camp is selecting some bad eggs (e.g. WP:PUSH) and deselecting some good eggs (e.g. Dennis Brown). We are no longer the encyclopedia anyone can edit. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:22, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
There are 48,412,815 registered and 122,697 active users ; indicating that, in fact, most new users do not "get through boot camp." --not that there is supposed to be a boot camp here. NE Ent 20:08, 25 January 2014 (UTC)
Buster7, you'll notice that quote was meant to hint that newcomers see a lot of templates and styles and rarely voice their view; rather, they accept it as a part of what Wikipedia does. There is a lot of problems (such as overuse of templates on user talk pages; insufficient attention to detail and over-linking to WP:* instead of talking and working on content where a newcomer asks for help; too many unneeded terms such as article classes; disproportionate amount of hand-holding and chewing things to pieces where a couple words could get the newcomer do the thing) we may fail to spot unless we work with the newcomers very closely. --Gryllida (talk) 11:49, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
There is a boot-camp. It is very much supposed to exist, as the counterweight to "anyone can edit" + "half of all humans are below average" = "wikipedia will never work". The boot-camp is what makes it work. It de-selects the spammers. It filters out the visigoths. Among good-faith editors, it de-selects the folks unwilling to follow WP:NICE (pillar four) and WP:COPYVIO (pillar three) and WP:NPOV (pillar two). Civility, free as in freedom, neutrality! Give us your bored, your smart, your huddled masses!  :-)   It is supposed to select folks that are WP:HERE (pillar one) to improve the encyclopedia, whilst WP:IAR (pillar five). That's the idealized description of our boot-camp.
  But that's not *all* our boot-camp does. It heavily selects for WP:MMORPG types, who mash them thar buttons, editcountitis the end-goal. It heavily selects for people who not only do not mind it, when they see template-spam on user-talkpages, but who cannot fathom that "rvv A7 (TW)" could even CONCEIVABLY be seen as a rude slap in the face. It heavily de-selects people who are experts, with no time for such wikiCop nonsense. It heavily de-selects people like barepunts, with no patience for such nonsense. It does not de-select WP:PUSH with WP:COI and a knack for WP:9STEPS. Hence, our editor-count has been declining for years now, and will continue to do so. Simultaneously, the percentage of our remaining editors who are tendentious and win-at-all-costs has been growing.[citation needed] I'm not saying we don't need a boot-camp, I'm saying we need a BETTER boot-camp, that selects and de-selects more optimally. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 14:22, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
boot camp is a psychological process designed to transform a diverse group of young people into soliders willing to be place themselves at mortal risk and to kill people they have no particular quarrel with. While it's necessary for Wikipedia to filter editors who can not work collaboratively it in no way should be thought of as boot camp process. NE Ent 14:41, 26 January 2014 (UTC)
Agree. But then, why do we put people through trial-by-fire, a gauntlet of snark, reverts, officious templates, rude bohts, and so on, before we deem them Worthy To Edit With The Few The Proud And The wikiBrave? Call it what you wish: there is a training process that beginning editors undergo here, and it is highly selective, far beyond the chances of getting into Harvard or Stanford or MIT or Berkeley any other top undergrad schools. Back in 2005, the process was different, because the goals were different: attracting and retaining editors was more important to us. Now, plenty of people could care less if Barepunts is gone forever, good riddance, they weren't good enough to edit here anyways.
  I've been editing on the discretionary-sanctions-pages, and our not-a-boot-camp process is turning young editors into wikiSoldiers ready to violate pillar four and risk being banned, fully ready to WP:9STEPS their content-opponents, and in general fucking everything up. Barepunts edited two pages, successfully, before on their third article encountering other wikipedians. It is not a coincidence that this third article was also their last.
  What *do* you want the process, of selecting good eggs, and de-selecting bad eggs, to look like? Because right now, we are in trouble, and it looks like a boot camp to me... or maybe, like a survivalist training course, aka the non-military-specific aspects of boot camp, were the soldiers have to learn to fend for themselves, live off the land, survive in the wild. Wikipedia doesn't train beginners to be wikiKillers that risk their wikiLives, but it *does* require that they be wikiPuritans responsible for their own wikiSouls, if you know what I mean. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 15:14, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

Break one-and-one-half: good eggs, sad eggs, and bad eggs

Not contributing right now.

Contributing now.

People contribute to wikipedia for various reasons, and in various ways. But people who are banned, people who are blocked, people who are driven away, people who gradually grow too sad to stay... they are all in the same group, of Wikipedians Who Aren't Contributing Right Now. For wikipedia to be sustainable, we need to have DahCommuhnity, the people that maintain her. For wikipedia to be improved, we need to have editors, the people that improve her. Anybody who makes their first edit, is a wikipedian. We have 20m+ of them historically (not counting anons like me), out of 500m readers. We have 125k in the past month, many of them bad eggs. We have 30k actives, with 5+edits/mo, like Barepunts and Ryk72. Finally, we have 3k veryActives, with 99+edits/mo.

  But as time goes on, we naturally lose our actives, and our veryActives, to the real-ov-verse. We therefore must select new good eggs, to replace the good eggs that we lose. Simultaneously, we must defend wikipedia from spammers, from POV-pushers, from visigoths, and from legal threats (governments and hypercorps mostly but also death-by-a-thousand-cuts individual lawsuits). The de facto process of selecting good eggs, and de-selecting bad eggs, is therefore crucial to wikipedia's survival. Are we doing it right? The declining ratio, of actives-to-readers, and veryActives-to-readers, strongly suggests we are not. 74.192.84.101 (talk) 16:03, 26 January 2014 (UTC)

One can of course question slanderous statements here, like calling professional writers with many decades of technical writing experience "bad eggs". There are a few "good eggs" destroying Wikipedia. Is that good? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Deewells (talk • contribs) 13:24, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

Break 2: your password

I'm not sure whether Barepunts managed to remember password, reset it as documented here, note I left a message on your talk page and if you forgot password then you will not see a notification. --Gryllida (talk) 11:49, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

Special:EmailUser/Barepunts you have no e-mail set up with the account. It's difficult. :-(
--Gryllida (talk) 11:52, 25 January 2014 (UTC)

An observation and a thanks (you all know who you are)

It is great to see that WER is doing well, perhaps better, since I've pulled back from Wikipedia. I know, some of you are going to complain that it has flaws and you are probably right, but it still does more good than harm. Many of you have stepped forward and have made it better than before. I might have started it a year and a half ago, but you all have molded it into something better than I could have. It reminds me of a coffee shop where everyone gathers, a neutral place where all ideas are welcome, where a bit of healthy anarchy can be found, and a bunch of people that genuinely care about editors new and old. It is a mess, but I think a healthy mess where the lack of formality and rules allow people to vent if they must, raise interesting points, suggest ideas or just learn. I'm sure there are some people who disagree with my assessment, and you know what? That's ok! Join and help improve it, all viewpoints are welcome. Anyway, if no one else does, I certainly appreciate the efforts of those that patrol here. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 19:03, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

I'm not entirely sure that all posts since you left are within the spirit of what you created here. in fact in some ways it may appear to have become just another venue where some editors simply continue to air their well known grievances when discussion in more appropriate venues appears to have (temporarily) dried up. I'm concerned however about the loss of established content providers. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 04:20, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
That is, of course, your opinion, Kudpung. Others might not agree. There are various components of editor retention, and just because you don't happen to agree with some of them does not make them invalid. Intothatdarkness 14:34, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
WER has always had posts that were off the mark or on the fringe side, it is unavoidable. The fact is, "retention" is a heated topic with lots of strong emotion. Having a place to discuss it is important, and again, it is ALWAYS going to be messy. WER will never be a tea parlor, prim and proper, and I expect disagreement: it is how you build consensus. If we all agreed, WER would be irrelevant, we would just go and do it. More people are now considering and discussing retention when it comes to policy and other issues. That alone is a small victory. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 15:25, 3 February 2014 (UTC)
Editor retention will always have that component because each individual editor will have different triggering issues that cause them to consider leaving. It's rarely a simple question with a single, discrete answer. What I object to is the idea that there is an "approved" reason, and thus an "approved" solution. OWN of policy is a dangerous thing, and I suspect that it has caused more than a few initiatives to go by the wayside. Intothatdarkness 15:30, 3 February 2014 (UTC)

Two new EotW nominations

I have nominated two editors for your consideration and discussion. Early on we decided to maintain at least 6 editors in the Q. This, of course, requires that the nomination process/page be constantly refreshed. Please keep the Eddy Award in mind as you wander around Wikipedia. There are thousands of worthy editors just waiting for a "pat on the back". Don't Wait---Nominate. ```Buster Seven Talk 21:17, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

Vanished user llkdfkj4isw4

First edit Sept 21, 2010, and one of Wikipedia's 8% 7% of female editors, vanished after [9] to a clean block record, in a dispute about gendered titles for Australian soccer teams.

Riddle: The comment determined to be blockworthy was:

  1. For fuck's sake, give it a rest; there's a fucking hatnote at the very top telling you about the women's team. Grow up.
  2. Go and concentrate on being productive somewhere else or improving your Spanish.
  3. Care to fuck off, or actually improve the encyclopedia for once?
  4. I have not proven your point, I just kicked your point in the teeth and rubbed its face in the mud. Christ, it's like talking to a child!
  5. Don't fucking bother replying with clear bullshit statements. Get a bloody life.
  6. Further sanctimonious waffle is doing nothing to disprove W:FOOTY's reputation as a "boring or time-wasting meeting or other event". Also can refer to self-congratulatory behavior or discussion amongst a group of people.

[Answer: #6, because of its link to this definition.] —Neotarf (talk) 15:48, 7 February 2014 (UTC)

And...?
If this is former CC, it is really a miracle that she stayed block free until January. Her behavior was really disruptive.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:53, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
@Ymblanter: what is a former CC? XOttawahitech (talk) 16:51, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
The abbreviation of the full name of the user before she vanished.--Ymblanter (talk) 16:53, 9 February 2014 (UTC)

Of interest...

...this discussion. --Gryllida (talk) 15:19, 8 February 2014 (UTC)

@Gryllida: before I run off to read yet another wall of text - can you please tell us what the relevance is to participants in Editor Retention? Thanks for taking the time. XOttawahitech (talk) 17:03, 9 February 2014 (UTC)
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