Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

academic.oup.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 363 posts

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#11

Post by Thorrez »

itishappy wrote: post #7
rewmie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, the only toxic comments I experienced on Wikipedia were from an editor. Isn't everyone an editor on Wikipedia? By definition, you need to be an editor in order to leave comments. Who other than editors would leave toxic comments?

Am I a marathon runner because I'm theoretically capable of it, or do I need to actually run one first?

Leaving a comment on Wikipedia involves editing the talk page. So commenting is performing an edit, thus making the commenter also an editor.

Also, anyone who is knowledgeable enough to edit a talk page most likely has edited regular articles in the past as well.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#12

Post by bdhcuidbebe »

bawolff wrote: post #4

This seems a bit to be a - water is wet article. I think the more interesting question is what is the impact of these volunteers leaving. Are the toxic comments directed at people who tend to get in the middle of flamewars, or are they innocents? Do these people do good work? Or are they just annoying people until someone snaps at them in a fit of toxity?

> I think the more interesting question is what is the impact of these volunteers leaving.

Then you might be interested in reading the publication you are commenting on, especially under the heading ”Results”.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#13

Post by sebstefan »

rewmie wrote: post #6
Semaphor wrote: post #5

edit: Misunderstood TFA. Leaving the original comment. ~~On the other hand, the only toxic comments I experienced on Wikipedia were from an editor.~~

> On the other hand, the only toxic comments I experienced on Wikipedia were from an editor. Isn't everyone an editor on Wikipedia? By definition, you need to be an editor in order to leave comments. Who other than editors would leave toxic comments?

There's regular users and then there's "Extended confirmed users" who have more permissions and can do things such as edit protected pages

>User is automatically added to the group when the account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. This user access right allows editors to edit and create pages that are under extended confirmed protection.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#14

Post by Thorrez »

Semaphor wrote: post #9
rewmie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, the only toxic comments I experienced on Wikipedia were from an editor. Isn't everyone an editor on Wikipedia? By definition, you need to be an editor in order to leave comments. Who other than editors would leave toxic comments?

I took this to mean those with special rights, so everything beyond automatically granted standard access: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels

Skimming the article, the article isn't using that definition. The article's definition seems to be "anyone with an account" or "anyone with an account who is active".

> In this paper, we analyze all 57 million comments made on user talk pages of 8.5 million editors across the six most active language editions of Wikipedia

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#15

Post by itishappy »

Thorrez wrote: post #11
itishappy wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I a marathon runner because I'm theoretically capable of it, or do I need to actually run one first?

Leaving a comment on Wikipedia involves editing the talk page. So commenting is performing an edit, thus making the commenter also an editor. Also, anyone who is knowledgeable enough to edit a talk page most likely has edited regular articles in the past as well.

Sure, but do you really think that's the intent of the article, or are we arguing semantics?

Your second point is a great one.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#17

Post by Thorrez »

sebstefan wrote: post #13
rewmie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, the only toxic comments I experienced on Wikipedia were from an editor. Isn't everyone an editor on Wikipedia? By definition, you need to be an editor in order to leave comments. Who other than editors would leave toxic comments?

There's regular users and then there's "Extended confirmed users" who have more permissions and can do things such as edit protected pages >User is automatically added to the group when the account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. This user access right allows editors to edit and create pages that are under extended confirmed protection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_ac…

The original article doesn't seem to be making a distinction between regular users and extended confirmed users. It seems to call them all editors.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#18

Post by sebstefan »

Thorrez wrote: post #17
sebstefan wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's regular users and then there's "Extended confirmed users" who have more permissions and can do things such as edit protected pages >User is automatically added to the group when the account has existed for at least 30 days and has made at least 500 edits. This user access right allows editors to edit and create pages that are under extended confirmed protection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_ac…

The original article doesn't seem to be making a distinction between regular users and extended confirmed users. It seems to call them all editors.

Yes, I gathered they meant extended confirmed users because I can read context clues

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#19

Post by rewmie »

Semaphor wrote: post #9
rewmie wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, the only toxic comments I experienced on Wikipedia were from an editor. Isn't everyone an editor on Wikipedia? By definition, you need to be an editor in order to leave comments. Who other than editors would leave toxic comments?

I took this to mean those with special rights, so everything beyond automatically granted standard access: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels

> I took this to mean those with special rights (...)

I know that wikipedia supports granting special rights to some editors. I have those. That's why I'm stating that an editor does not have special rights, because everyone is an editor.

And by the way, in general Wikipedia's "special rights" granted to non-administrator user accounts aren't that special. They unlock some UI features like bulk editing to fight vandalism, move pages, mark edits as minor, etc. See for yourself, and compare the difference between the permissions granted to Administrator accounts, everyone in the world (all users, registered accounts), and other groups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:User_access_levels#T...

Claiming that an editor posted a toxic comment has the same weight as claiming that a random passerby shouted at you in the street.

Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

#20

Post by ProllyInfamous »

"You're [not your idea] stupid."

"Why can't you do what I asked, Stupid?!"

"WHERE HAVE ALL OUR USERS GONE?!?"

----

My main wikihandle is two decades old. It still shocks me when a fewyearsaccount un-edits my contributions (I know how this rodeo works, folks). Even more shocking is when ChatGPT cites one of my trivial contributions (e.g. transistor density updates when M2Pro chipset was released).

Post reply on HN