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Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia

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

#21

Post by chefandy »

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?

Sure-- where you're driving is usually more interesting than the highway that will take you there, but this isn't an off-the-cuff editorial-- it's presenting a quantitative analysis. Trying to study the qualitative impact without data like this means merely assuming the fundamental size and shape of the problem, which at best reduces it's utility. At worse it points you in the completely wrong direction.

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

#22

Post by vasco »

"Toxic" would not be the thing I'd start with. I'd start with "being told no for the first time", which might or not have an overlap with toxicity. But I think it's much more likely that someone will start making edits, only get uninterested comments or bot engagements, keep editing, then at some point someone reverts the edits - tells them no, and so they stop.

Potentially this scenario even catches situations like:

1. User registers

2. User adds a bunch of promotional edits to multiple pages

3. At some point someone discovers this, reverts something, tells them to go away

4. User was "caught" so abandons the account and re-registers

If #3 is classified as toxic, this paper would find the same results I think.

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

#23

Post by rewmie »

itishappy wrote: post #15
Thorrez wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

It's not semantics. Accusing Wikipedia editors of doing something in an attempt at portraying Wikipedia in a negative light has the same meaning as blaming wikipedia for accepting changes from everyone in the world who stumbles upon a page.

By definition, an editor is anyone who edits anything at all on Wikipedia. In wikipedia, you don't even need to be logged in to edit articles or leave comments.

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

#24

Post by Thorrez »

itishappy wrote: post #15
Thorrez wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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

I think the article is using "editor" in a broad way meaning all users with accounts. I think we are arguing semantics in a way the article isn't. From the article:

>A user’s talk page is a place where other editors can communicate with the user either on more personal topics or to extend their discussion from an article talk page.

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

#25

Post by 9question1 »

sebstefan wrote: post #18
Thorrez wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

tfw you see a snarky comment on a discussion thread about toxic comments

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

#26

Post by Semaphor »

rewmie wrote: post #19
Semaphor wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 vanda…

The special rights include reverting edits, which is pretty powerful when the person in question can insult you, but revert whatever you reply.

And I already edited the original comment, explaining that I misunderstood.

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

#27

Post by paulnpace »

Gave up looking for a clear definition of what a "toxic comment" is. All I found is a statement that they use some score from some tool and link to the tool developer's site so I'm required to sift through the developer's site to understand what the core part of the paper is, or I've missed some other part of the paper because they include so many dense paragraphs of nothing useful informations (as well as a nice promotion for the tool developers).

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

#28

Post by rewmie »

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…

> There's regular users and then there's "Extended confirmed users" (...)

The accusation isn't directed at users with specific role-oriented permissions. The accusation is directed at editors. Everyone in wikipedia is an editor. Even users who haven't logged in, or have an account at all. It's a nonsense claim, particularly when we take into account that the whole concept of a wiki is that everyone in the world is an editor.

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

#29

Post by Thorrez »

sebstefan wrote: post #18
Thorrez wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

>they

Are you talking about Semaphor or about the original article's authors?

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

#30

Post by snoopsnopp »

vasco wrote: post #22

"Toxic" would not be the thing I'd start with. I'd start with "being told no for the first time", which might or not have an overlap with toxicity. But I think it's much more likely that someone will start making edits, only get uninterested comments or bot engagements, keep editing, then at some point someone reverts the edits - tells them no, and so they stop. Potentially this scenario even catches situations like:…

I find this happens with a lot of forums. The most critically minded users eventually get exasperated and become toxic after repeated bans to “kamikaze” accounts.
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