From: "Charles Matthews"
<charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com>
The community writes the 'pedia. A 'great' community is actually quite
well
characterised by its attitude to joiners. Particularly, here, newbies with
other Internet experience who have something to say but are over-assertive
and edit 'in the wrong register'.
To join and be part of a community, you have to abide by its norms. Those
who fail to do so generally face exclusion from the community of one form or
another. And I find Wikipedia extremely reluctant to use the tools it has
to enfore communal norms, to its detriment. Some of the detriment is seen
in the highly variable quality of the content. Other is seen in the many
good editors willing to abide by those norms, but not put up with those who
do not, and who end up leaving.
Jay.