There is too much politically motivated agitation on Wikipedia. This is particularly a problem because Wikipedia's power apparatus is completely undemocratic and anonymous. Wikipedia's organizational structure corresponds to a medieval feudal system.
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
#82I think since the paper is littered with the term "toxic", it clearly has its own point of view — that is, not as objective as one would like in this kind of study.
Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminds me of my experience with Stackoverflow. I tried to solve a very specific problem with Windows installers. I only got some responses from oldtimers that basically said “why would you do such a thing?”and similar. It felt extremely unwelcoming. It’s ok to not answer but why be so dismissive? I guess the only questions they like are things like “how do I calculate 2+2 in python?”. Anything more complicated is no…
I think StackOverflow is a good example of a site where cultural norms have become a life-threatening issue. The site has experienced a sharp drop in search traffic and yet people still say it's unfriendly all the time. Fixing that perception should be a top priority.
Fixing the unfriendly perception is why stack overflow is dead. Signal to noise for professionals is now close to zero. Maybe it's friendlier, but it's also no longer worth visiting other than the historical record.
Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reminds me of my experience with Stackoverflow. I tried to solve a very specific problem with Windows installers. I only got some responses from oldtimers that basically said “why would you do such a thing?”and similar. It felt extremely unwelcoming. It’s ok to not answer but why be so dismissive? I guess the only questions they like are things like “how do I calculate 2+2 in python?”. Anything more complicated is no…
Yeah, whenever I ask a question on SO, I literally have to write paragraphs of text exhorting people to answer my question instead of a different question they find easier, or why my question is not the same as some vaguely similar one. Then I have to constantly remind people about the same stuff in the comments. That culture problem has been getting worse and worse at SO over time. I only go there as a last resort.
StackOverflow is a great resource if you want to know how you would have done some programming task in 2009. Their cultural aversion to new/updated content has frozen them in time.
Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia
#85You're being sprayed with weed killer (metaphorically). The problem is, you have step into a conflict area without realizing it.
The moderators spray the whole area with weed killer because there really are weeds. It's too much work to pull the weeds individually, so it all gets hosed down.
Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia
#86I have been making small contributions for fifteen or so years. I don’t much feel like doing it anymore after a spurt of bad interactions. About a year ago I created a Wikipedia page for a TV personality and author I enjoy. Spent literal hours on it collecting citations and what have you. Within a couple hours the page was deleted for not being noteworthy. He had his own TV show, has multiple published books and a po…
Reminds me of my experience with Stackoverflow. I tried to solve a very specific problem with Windows installers. I only got some responses from oldtimers that basically said “why would you do such a thing?”and similar. It felt extremely unwelcoming. It’s ok to not answer but why be so dismissive? I guess the only questions they like are things like “how do I calculate 2+2 in python?”. Anything more complicated is no…
Generally I've had pretty good luck with Stack Overflow. Recently however I had a ten year old popular question about how to read terminal responses in a shell script removed b/c some mod decided questions about shell scripts belonged on "another Stack Exchange site".
Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia
#87Wow, this is a great study and I bet it extends to other volunteer-based activities. In particular: open source software projects. It seems obvious that toxicity needs to be rooted out of open source communities, and any projects that don't do so or ignore the issue will fail to keep their contributors. But it's nice to have some real studies on this with some objective results (even if not strictly for open source s…
You need to get rid of codebase ownership and find something else to replace the trust it brings.
- Fine granularity forkability. Fork functions, not just projects
- Curators/Reviewers who endorse the validity/security aspects of those forks.
Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia
#88I have been making small contributions for fifteen or so years. I don’t much feel like doing it anymore after a spurt of bad interactions. About a year ago I created a Wikipedia page for a TV personality and author I enjoy. Spent literal hours on it collecting citations and what have you. Within a couple hours the page was deleted for not being noteworthy. He had his own TV show, has multiple published books and a po…
Wikipedia has an ongoing project on improving articles on the subject of western esotericism (quite interesting one even for "scientifially-minded" if you look at the origins of the Royal Society and the surrounding protosciences). I've been using Wikipedia since its early beginnings, on my primary account loosely contributing for well over a decade and many of my edits from years ago were left unchanged.
A few months ago I've tried creating a small page about a modern-day occultist who seems to have near Indiana Jones status in that community for digging out one well-known magical ritual from medieval archives all over Europe with academic scrutiny (the Abramelin ritual, A Dark Song is a recent interesting movie about it). His name already was mentioned on some related pages.
Went through some lengths searching for more secondary material after they asked for it. Had hours of conversations via Wikipedia IRC to make sure I deliver exactly what is needed (and they claimed my sources are sufficient there). But even several academic papers discussing his work were not enough for the admin in charge, apparently his whole bio needs to be in a secondary source for him to be considered "noteworthy" - which seems to be an impossible demand in this small community.
I get the danger of self-promotion, Wikipedia has a few obvious pages of company CEOs self-promoting, who probably asked some poor employee bloke to write it. But meanwhile Wikipedia is scattered with obvious industry propaganda / damage control (see the suspiciously detailed Monsanto damage-controlling articles on glyphosate or the Séralini affair; and some more recent pharma-related topics) and literal advertisements from several industries. Just check out that page about Justin Bieber portraying that kid as some modern-day musical genius. Industry marketing departments – of course – do have the resources to literally fight for their articles full-time. On top of it this all severely and widely influences public opinion - these articles are much more widely read than one about a well-known author in a hidden subculture -, and nobody seems to be interested in doing something about it.
Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia
#89[dead]
Re: Toxic comments are associated with reduced volunteer activity on Wikipedia
#90I have been making small contributions for fifteen or so years. I don’t much feel like doing it anymore after a spurt of bad interactions. About a year ago I created a Wikipedia page for a TV personality and author I enjoy. Spent literal hours on it collecting citations and what have you. Within a couple hours the page was deleted for not being noteworthy. He had his own TV show, has multiple published books and a po…
> He had his own TV show, has multiple published books and a popular podcast.
That alone doesn't meet Wikipedia's requirements for noteworthiness. Some of the sources you used have to be independent. Eg. published biographies written by someone else, an independent TV show about him (not starring him), etc. Otherwise any random social media influencer could be included if they publish their content in various formats.