[WikiEN-l] Re: What's the issue?

Thu Jun 24 19:30:34 UTC 2004

Denni wrote:

> I don't get it, Timwi.

I might try to clarify anything you "don't get", but I'm afraid you'll 
have to come down to a level where we can communicate. English is not my 
native language! Things like this:

> if the plaudits I've earned by exemplary performance (no humility here)
> are reflective of what the "average" writer/illustrator gets, then there's a
> pathetically abyssmal level of feedback and encouragement going on.

are incomprehensible to common folk such as myself. :-p Additionally, I 
would be grateful if you would reply to the relevant message next time, 
to keep it within the proper thread. Thank you.

> As an easy example, try this: SETI Online offers online certificates for
> work units completed. I am coming up on certificate four - 1000 work
> units - and I'm excited.

This is significantly different from what I was referring to. It is 
already technically possible for us to count the number of contributions 
(I even keep an approximate value on my user page updated). However, it 
is clear to everyone, troll or not, that these numbers don't mean 
anything. Anyone can make tens of thousands of edits; the system does 
not judge how meaningful each edit is.

And *that* is where the problem comes in. By giving awards to people, we 
would be *judging the value* of a contribution. And we're bound to go 
horribly wrong. We're going to be biased against obscure topics that 
nobody finds interesting; we're going to be biased towards people who 
have been here for longer and whom we already appreciate; and we're 
going to be biased against people who are not quite as socially 
competent as we would like them to be.

You already mentioned that we are here for the fun of it. Yes, of course 
we are. Who's denying that? The problem with these awards is that each 
award makes *one* person happy, and a *load* of people unhappy. It is 
simply no fun to see other people receive awards for something you 
personally feel you have done better, more of, or to a greater 
degree/extent. People are inevitably going to feel that way. It is well 
possible that some people are different, but I think the majority would 
*feel* (not think!) that way, no matter how hard you try to say to 
yourself that you *should* be happy for other people when they receive a 
reward and you don't. It only gets worse over time as you are 
continually denied a reward. People are *much* more likely to become 
demotivated and gradually (not explicitly!) leave in frustration (and 
they may not even be consciously aware that they are leaving *because* 
they have been denied a reward, even if that is the case!), than they 
are to work *even* harder for something they feel they're already 
entitled to.

> the more welcome we make good writers feel, the
> longer they stay, and the more welcome we make weak writers feel, the
> stronger they get.

I tend to agree with this. We'd just have to work on being more 
welcoming. Things like what prompted James Marshall to post here about 
being reverted and blocked, simply should not happen. Newbies make a few 
mistakes because they are not aware of all our customs, policies, 
conventions, rules, taboos, etc. The problem is that this automatically 
makes them unpopular. Inventing rewards for our long-time contributors 
is not going to fix that (quite to the contrary, it might even make some 
awardees feel *even* more superior to "those pesky newbies").

Some of the rules we have seem unwelcoming to newbies. Unfortunately, we 
can't easily find out which ones they are, because all we ever see from 
a person that is driven away by such a rule, is a single edit from an 
anonymous IP adress; usually even one that is waved off as "vandalism" 
and reverted. We see more from the people who rebel against the rules, 
and these people are not representative of those that have left. If we 
were to introduce these awards, those that have left quickly are 
unlikely to even take notice of the fact that we are awarding something, 
so it's not going to make them stay.

Timwi