[WikiEN-l] The difficulty of retaining volunteer writers

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&o… 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&… 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 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