On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 at 22:35, Andy Mabbett <a...@pigsonthewing.org.uk> wrote:
> I have just come across a case on en.Wikipedia where the daughter of > an article subject added details of his funeral (his death in 1984,w > as already recorded) and his view about an indent in his life. [...] > As well as being reverted, she now has three templates on her talk > page; two warning her of a CoI, and sandwiching one notifying her of a > discussion about her on the COI noticeboard. These total 4094 > characters or 665 words. > This is a topic that's seldom discussed and somewhat taboo in certain areas, therefore not many people are aware of what experiences many newcomers have. These events go generally unnoticed, but if you were wondering why editor retention is a constant issue, the pattern that lies behind this single case you brought to our attention is a top reason. I've tried to help in a similar case of a footballer unknown in English-speaking countries. She was repeatedly reverted without the edits being evaluated or the rules being explained. She never returned and I was frowned upon by the admin, who was involved, for trying to help. I've noticed this "shoot first, ask later" pattern in many cases, not just with newcomers. Unfortunately, this is all too common and a contributing factor to the toxicity. I've noticed the following issues: 1) The general unwelcoming treatment of newcomers: "noobs" are considered lacking the proper understanding and necessary knowledge, unless they jump right into RC patrolling, which is not the sign of a new editor. 2) The lack of protection given to newcomers: "You have no rights" being explicitly said to one newcomer, that I recall. 3) Preferential treatment and authority bias: the experienced/established user is "trusted", thus must be right, therefore unwelcoming - and often hostile - conduct is not considered uncivil or it's "not actionable". 4) The excessively vilifying application of the most frowned-upon rules such as COI, socking. Editors tagged as such are treated the same regardless of the effect of their actions and whether that has caused any damage, which can scale from none to introducing bias to many articles for years. Currently, there is no effort to mitigate these issues, to improve the policies and community practices. It's also a problem that while the "biting newbies" and "civility" policies are very well written, these are almost never applied and definitely not in the protection of newcomers. By that I don't mean these should always result in sanctions, but that the community - and primarily who get involved with handling disputes - should take these seriously, approach with a neutral mindset and remind the editors about our policies, but that almost never happens and such complaints are either ignored or blindly decided in favor of the editor with more supporters, enabling the abuse of newcomers. Tl;dr: newcomers don't enjoy the safety net created by editors who know and care for each other and the community processes are not set up to create a welcoming and/or safe environment, this purpose is not manifested in any kind of endeavors or practices. If the WMF and the movement take the Mid-Term target of a welcoming environment seriously, that's a difficult, long-term target that will take a lot of effort. Aron (Demian) _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
