[WikiEN-l] The difficulty of retaining volunteer writers

Sat Dec 3 22:15:05 UTC 2005

This message was bounced back to me so I am resending it.  I do not know 
what went wrong and apologize if I am just duplicating.

I do not want to go into details about FuelWagon's behavior, in part 
because the list-serve is not going to make any decisions about how to 
handle specific problems, and in part because trolls are tarbabies: good 
editors respond in arithmetically increasing increments, and trolls respond 
in geometrically increasing increments.  That said, it was enough for me to 
look at FW's absurd and absurdly long list of conditions for resolving the 
dispute with SlimVirgin to recognize the pattern.  I started going through 
FW's list of "reckless" edits by Slim, and as far as I can tell this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Terri_Schiavo&diff=next&oldid=18613021
involved nothing more than adding a pdf identifier.  Why bother going on at 
that point?  Yet I did, and saw that Neuroscientist had what seemed to be 
several substantive, well-informed, and reasonable criticisms of some of 
Slim's edits.  Slim provided what seemed to me to be an appropriate 
response to Neuroscientist, and Neuroscientist's response,
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Terri_Schiavo&diff=next&oldid=18728860
was respectful and gracious.  If anything, this exchange between 
Neuroscientist and Slimvirgin proves to me that it is possible for editors 
with varying degrees of expertise and experience to handle conflicts in a 
mutually respectful way.  FuelWagon's actions provide the starkest of 
contrasts.

The reason I am writing is because I think the question of good editors 
leaving is or should be a matter of central concern to us.  I think the 
fundamental problem is this: we are growing at an incredible rate.  This is 
on the surface a good thing: more articles covering more topics is a good 
thing, and we certainly have come up with a number of articles that I 
believe are of publishable quality.  For all I know, we are attracting just 
as many new good editors as bad ones.  The problem with growth is this: a 
troll, or set of trolls, has a much larger landscape on which to roam and 
wreak havoc.  Consequently, it is often very difficult or at least 
time-consuming for the victim of a troll to respond.  And it is even more 
difficult and time-consuming for anyone else (an administrator, a member of 
the ArbCom) to sort out what has been going on.  And it becomes very 
tiring.  Eclecticology alluded to the benefits of dedicated administrators 
taking a vacation, and of course he is right.  But if there were more 
admins who took on the burden of corralling trolls, and more effective ways 
of dealing with them, those admins would not need the vacation.  So to me, 
the fact that admins even rely on vacations as a palliative means that the 
damage trolls accomplish is somewhat greater than the healing or repairing 
that administrators can accomplish.  No surprise: it is easier to break 
things than to build them.

Ec also points out that sometimes admins are too harsh too hastily.  He is 
correct that this does happen; I have done it.  But there are plenty more 
times where I have addressed a newbie respectfully and the newbie 
reciprocated in kind -- and plenty of times where I have addressed a newbie 
with respect only to find myself stuck to the mess of tar trolls trail 
wherever they go.

Anyone who has been here long enough knows that Ed Poor and I have had 
plenty of heated comments.  But I have always regarded him as 
well-intentioned and open to criticism and that enough is to make us all 
concerned that he may feel harassed to the point of leaving (yes, Ed has 
taken vacations in the past -- but in those cases he was reflecting on his 
own faults or overinvestment in Wikipedia, not, to my recollection at 
least, because someone was driving him out).  I have even gotten into 
conflicts with SlimVirgin, although for the most part I have found it a 
real pleasure to work with her.  I do not always agree with one of her 
edits, but she is among the most reasonable people I have ever disagreed 
with.  That she may feel besieged is more than a shame.  What Ed and Slim 
are expressing make manifest a serious issue we should confront head on.

I have two propositions.  The first one is based on a premise some of you 
may not share: I believe that experienced administrators can within two or 
three days of dealing with someone tell the difference between a troll and 
a non-troll (e.g. someone educable, or someone with whom we simply have 
legitimate differences of opinion that need to be sorted out).  I have 
never sat down to think, concretely, what it is that so clearly signals at 
the earliest moment that someone is a troll.  But I think if a few of us 
put our heads together, and revamp either the Wikipedia: Etiquette page, or 
one of the other pages on personal behavior.  I think we can and ought to 
come up with a set of clear diagnostic traits for trolls and have a very 
clear policy page.  My intention is for there to be a set of guidelines 
that helps us identify trolling at the earliest possible moment so we can 
act on it before we end up in a situation where someone has to go through 
hundreds of edits to prove a pattern of abuse.  I recognize that this is 
not an easy task -- many of us, certainly I, have at times fallen short of 
ideal personal behavior.  And, as Ec rightfully reminds us, there are many 
Newbies that at first act inappropriately yet turn out to be great 
contributors.  Perhaps we can come up with a hierarchy of rules and 
guidelines -- one's at the bottom that non-trolls may even frequently fail 
to comply with, but that characterize situations that are and have been 
easily repaired, and one's at the top that are almost exclusively limited 
to trolls.  I am as committed to the quasi-anarchic nature of Wikipedia as 
anyone here.  But we already have guidelines about personal behavior: let's 
make them clearer and more effective.  I think people who have served on 
the ArbCom for starts would be a good group of people to at least develop 
proposals.  Also, long-standing and well-regarded editors who have been 
victims of harassment and trolling (but who have also gotten into conflicts 
that were resolved in a positive way) should be well-suited to develop 
proposals.

Second, Mav has stated "Admins need more authority to enforce all our 
policies. But, and this is important, they should get other admins to do 
the enforcement in cases that will likely be challenged."  I fully 
agree.  Here is my proposal: if someone believes they are the victims of 
trolling, that is, a pattern of unacceptable abuse by people who have 
resisted compromise or dialogue, or who have clearly escalated a conflict, 
there should be a specific page on all sysops' watchlists where they can 
make a petition (with evidence, but at a much lower standard than the 
ArbCom -- say, three examples that reveal a pattern of escalating 
abuse).  If two (or, three) admins certify the petition, the harasser is 
banned for one week.  If it happens a second time, the harasser is banned 
indefinitely.  In both cases the accused harasser must have a means to 
appeal the decision (I think to the ArbCom).  But the burden of proof in 
these cases would be on the appellant, not on the petitioner.

Mav writes,
>I'm sick of the high turnover of good contributors too. We need to fix 
>that if we want to
>encourage a productive work environment. This bullshit has got to stop so 
>we can concentrate on
>creating the world's best encyclopedia. Openness is a means to an end. 
>Nothing more. Crackpots,
>POV pushers, and trolls are not welcome.

I agree with him 100%.  It is time to act.

Steve

Steven L. Rubenstein
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Bentley Annex
Ohio University
Athens, Ohio 45701