Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention/Archive 20

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WikiProject Birds‎ and "downcasing" imposition

Thread retitled from "WikiProject Birds‎ and "downcasing" imposition".

I am revising the heading of this section from WikiProject Birds‎ and "downcasing" imposition to WikiProject Birds‎ and "downcasing" imposition, in harmony with WP:TPOC, point 12 (Section headings). The new heading is intended to facilitate links to it, for example the one in Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Editor Retention#Bird names in lower case.

—Wavelength (talk) 01:13, 26 July 2014 (UTC)

I am wondering whether anyone has looked at the effect of blind imposition of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style guidelines on the retention of knowledgeable editors in a project like WikiProject Birds‎.

For a bit of background: This is all about the naming style for bird names for which many sources and bird authorities use a capitalisation style like "Red Robin" but MOS insists on "red robin". The wikiproject dedicated to improving the bird articles has long used the former standard (from the projects inception as far as I know), but recently it has been decided by others that these must all be changed to lowercase.

The merits of either approach are not what I want to rehash. But it is the effect upon this dedicated community of editors that I am dismayed to see (I am not a member of the project, but do often edit articles about NZ birds so are sort of on the periphery observing the effect). Most members just want to improve the bird articles and are not into wiki lawyering or fighting whatever you want to call endless brow beating arguments from people who apparently have no interest in content creators, but only trying to achieve a standardised look.

From this small community we've already had one editor leave citing this as the final straw, and another about to leave suggesting the creation of a separate wiki where they can continue contributing their knowledge without arbitrary 'standards' imposed. I expect that some will continue to belittle members by characterising this as "people throwing their toys out of the cradle". The group as a whole isn't going to do a mass walkout, but I expect this is just one more niggle that will prompt them to spend a little less time here, and wonder why they bother.

For me the loss of even one experienced and dedicated editor over a matter like this is depressing. It is not about the merits of either argument, but how the result is being imposed and how the views of project members have been dismissed. Volunteers don't ask for much in return, but they're not going to bother if their experience, knowledge, effort and views are not appreciated. --Tony Wills (talk) 07:30, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the MOS crowd are out of control—it's the tail wagging the dog. An RfC was held here, but MOS is run by highly verbose and domineering editors who made a discussion of the underlying issues impossible. Any benefit from all names being in lowercase does not justify forcing difficult-to-implement requirements on editors who have built excellent content and who know how bird names are written in comparable documents. No doubt the MOS wizards are working on a proposal to make all words the same length, and we will be informed in due course. Johnuniq (talk) 11:42, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

Name even one single argument, point or aspect of "a discussion of the underlying issues" that was not addressed in that RfC, in which "the WP:BIRDS crowd" were plenty verbose yourselves. The RfC was started and "managed" (over my procedural objections, an entire subsection of them) by a pro-capitalization partisan, and the RfC was closed by an admin who was also pro-capitalization personally. At some point, when an argument doesn't go your way, and others who held your view have graciously conceded and moved on to something productive, you just have to live with it, and stop trying to demonize everyone involved and the process itself. Using the shift key less frequently is not a "difficult-to-implement requirement". And "comparable documents" (i.e. other encyclopedias and similar generalist works) overwhelmingly do not capitalize common names of species of anything. That's the main reason the RfC went the way it did, remember? PS: "The MOS crowd are out of control" is a blanket personal attack and bad faith assumption against all editors of probably the most-watchlisted guideline on the entire system. You should retract that.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Is there some part of "MOS is run by highly verbose and domineering editors" that you disagree with? Johnuniq (talk) 10:39, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

@Tony Wills: All of what you've posted needs to be addressed, but that will be long (your number one complaint seems to be "dismissiveness", so I'm going the opposite route and engaging you point-by-point). I'll collapse it so it doesn't drown out the rest of the thread:

Itemized response to Tony Wills

the effect of blind imposition of Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style guidelines – there was no "blind imposition" of anything by anyone on anything. There was an 8+ year debate which proponents of capitalization resoundingly failed to win, even when the latest in the long string of RfCs on the matter was closed by an admin who actually personally preferred the capitalization; the case presented (again and again and again, at mind-numbing length and repetiveness, year after year) by the pro-caps camp simply was not very strong. There was nothing "blind" about it, and labeling as "blind" a community-wide consensus decision many years in the making, with every bit of evidence the pro-caps camp could muster examined in detail, is basically telling the whole editorship of Wikipedia that they're all a bunch of morons. many sources and bird authorities use a capitalisation style like "Red Robin" but MOS insists on "red robin" – So do the vast majority of reliable sources. The problem in this debate since day one is that the vociferous, pro-caps camp among the birder editors has not been willing to accept the clear and obvious fact that what biology and science journals, newspapers, dictionaries, magazines and other encyclopedias do are all reliable sourcing; they cannot rationally claim that only the bird journals and books they carefully cherry-pick (to avoid those that don't capitalize) are reliable sources on how to write biology articles in an encyclopedia simply because birds are involved. It's a ridiculous position to take, and this is of course why only a tiny, horse-beating minority in the birds (or any other) project have ever taken such a position. If some of them are threatening to leave because they are not getting their way, I refer them to WP:DIVA and WP:5THWHEEL, encourage them to take a WP:WIKIBREAK instead (it's quite refreshing) and come back when their egos have settled back down and they're ready to contribute without fighting for fighting's sake. [WP:BIRDS] has long used the former standard – It's not a standard. As I demonstrated in two entire sections at the RfC, with uncontroverted references, including the IOC's own publications, the capitalization scheme advanced by IOC conflicts with those, long preceding it, used by other national/regional organizations, it has not been widely adopted within ornithology, and it has been totally rejected in academic and research publishing outside of ornithological specialty publications (hint: Wikipedia isn't one). IOC naming's WP:FAITACCOMPLI imposition here as a "standard" by a handful of birds editors, over several years of constant objection from all corners of the encyclopedia, is one of the clearest cases of WP:ADVOCACY abuse of Wikipedia in the whole project's history, and could raised as a serious concern to be dealt with had the matter actually turned into the RFARB case I expected it to and was prepared for. Closely related is the falsification by pro-cap activists in the project that the style was a standard also for mammals and other organizations (see, e.g., the Talk:Cougar/Archive 2 for how shameless and browbeating this became, with two birds project members cherry-picking sources to try to "prove" that capitalization was standard for such a case, when the opposite was the truth, and one of them threatening to use admin powers to block anyone who tried to revert the capitalization). One case among many. I've documented much more of this sort of thing here. but recently it has been decided by others that these must all be changed to lowercase – it was decided by a very long and very detailed (and very redundant, since this had already been decided several times in the past) community-wide RfC, in which you all participated, not "by others". No invasion of non-Wikipedians made that decision. However, someone from the birds project did in fact self-admittedly canvass off-wiki for WP:MEATPUPPETs, in that RfC, to no avail. The interlopers from outside were all pro-caps vote-stackers, yet that putsch still failed to gain traction. Again. Even with a pro-caps person writing and "managing" the RfC, and a pro-caps one closing it. It's like being presented with a corpse with no heart, no head, no digestive tract, and no limbs, and still wondering if its life might be saved. Let's take this issue off life support, finally. it is the effect upon this dedicated community of editors [the birds wikiproject, not Wikipedia] that I am dismayed to see – You're being mislead by a melodramatic and emotional sour-grapes performance, and your concern is misplaced, like being worried more about the health of your spouse's left foot's third toe than of your spouse as a whole entity. Most members just want to improve the bird articles and are not into wiki lawyering or fighting – Precisely. Bird-related articles finally doing what MOS:LIFE says, and what virtually all other articles do (which is to not capitalize common names of species, like "mountain lion" and "bottlenosed dolphin") has no editorial effect on these editors other than having them press the shift key less often. (If they choose to follow MOS at all on this; no one cares if they don't unless they revert-war with others who clean up their over-capitalization later.) It has no other effect on them any more than any other publication with a style guide has. The vast majority of academic publication will not accept capitalized species names. Ergo, every ornithologist on this planet is entirely comfortable writing them lower-cased. Any who hated lower case so much they refused to submit article except to ornithology journals (the only ones that accept it, and not all of them do), and never to broader biology/ecology/nature/science journals, would fail in their publish-or-perish career very rapdily, ergo there are no such people. QED. Hobbyist birders also prefer to cpitalize but they just do it because their field guides do it. Yet wel also know that all field guides on all animals (and rocks and trees and whatever) use capitalization like this as a rapid scanning aid. Yet mineral collectors and wildflower spotters and so on are not threatening editorial walkouts here over capitalization. Therefore, we know that this cannot possibly be anything other than an overreaction engendered by heated personalities on one wikiproject. Elementary application of Ockham's razor. endless brow beating arguments from people who apparently have no interest in content creators, but only trying to achieve a standardised look – That's sounds like psychological projection. It's a perfect description of the pro-capitalization bird editors from everyone else's perspective: For almost nine years they've been fighting, often very uncivilly and dismissively, against every other editor on the system (i.e. content creators) any time one has been unfortunate enough to try to apply normal English rules to an article that happened to touch on birds or ornithology, or to question the bird articles not following them, all because some minority at the birds project insists to the point of going on editorial strike that all "their" articles must be consistent with some external "standard" that isn't really even a standard, no matter how much this offends the sensibility of these other editors, including zoology, biology, ecology, ethology, etc., subject-matter experts, and our general readership. Basically, no one in the entire world (other than, last I looked, some English botanists, and two sub-fields of entomologists) agrees with the capitalization except birders, and even they're not unanimous on it, they can't agree on the details of the capitalization (especially when hyphens are involved), and almost none of them are willing to get into verbal fights about it. Those who actually care are actually not willing to be tendentious about it, except for this slowly changing half-dozen to dozen bird editors. At no time during this entire multi-year debate has a sizeable number (e.g., even 1/4) of active editors listed as participants in that project stepped forward to offer an opinion; to most of them it's pointless, annoying wiki-political noise, a distraction from encyclopedia editing. From this small community we've already had one editor leave citing this as the final straw – Sabine's Sunbird had been gone for something close to a year before popping in to look around again with no certain intent to return, got angry, and made a big deal about quitting, accusing me and some other people of various things in the process. (See my own recent talk page archives for proof.) This is rather like your ex-girlfriend coming over unannounced, finding that you've moved on in your life, then threatening to leave you, 6 months after you already broke up. and another about to leave suggesting the creation of a separate wiki – Nothing wrong with that at all. A WP:RTV'd user I'll refer to simply as KvdL, in one of her many dramatic and personal blame-casting "I quit" productions [they go back to at least 20047, see WT:Expert retention] proposed this over two years ago (despite being an entomologist not an ornithologist), in response to an earlier version of the same debate (which the pro-caps actvists failed to carry that time, too, producing only a frustrated stalemate through canvassing [see my ANI case against KvdL for proof of canvassing in the 2012 debate]). MediaWiki is free software for a reason. There are many, many wikis out there that provide more specialist-oriented information than Wikipedia does. WP:NOT leaves a large amount of room for others to do things with offsite. More power to them. If everyone devoted all their time to Wikipedia, none of those other projects could function. The vast majority of their editorship is made up of people who used to mostly be Wikipedians and who've been transitioning to more specialist wiki editing. That's how free development projects of all kinds evolve and spread. Wikipedia, like GNU/Linux in the free software world, is the big project that serves as a gateway. where they can continue contributing their knowledge without arbitrary 'standards' imposed – Yes, we all know what terrible things standards are, especially if they're applied consistently and we don't let every special interest make up its own random rules and force them on others who edit "their" articles. It's just terrible. Let's destroy all standards immediately. Seriously, I remind you that the standards WP settles on are arrived at by a community consensus process, not through imposition by some external "authority" (imposition of which is precisely what that pro-caps camp at WP:BIRDS sought – imposition of IOC naming rules). No one ever gets every single thing they want out of of the WP:Consensus process. That's just how compromise is. See WP:COMPETENCE; not all editors are well-suited for collaborative editing in a system with malleable rules they don't have a lot of personal control over. People who find that kind of environment too stressful do in fact have a tendency to leave the project after a limited period of enthusiasm. Exactly as is happening with a handful of WP:BIRDS editors who failed to dominate the decision-making process the way they hoped. This is actually a well-documented process in organizational life cycles, by the way; there are entire books about it. People from the founding and immediately post-founding phases of an organization leave it when its rule systems begin to solidify, especially if they come to conclusions that differ from those of the earlier flying-by-the-seat-of-our-pants phase the outgoing participants will not let go of; they usually vent about "bureaucracy" on their way out, despite the organization being years away from any actual bureaucratic crisis. Anyway, whatever "BirdWiki" they might create, it too will have standards arrived at internally (with many of the very same debates, e.g. whether to adopt the IOC's capitalization rules or stick with regional ones that are better-established) and participants there will not all agree with all of those rules, but they'll have to agree to live with them, just as we do here. The very idea that simply moving the same people to work on the same content at another site will make all their collaboration problems disappear is transparently silly. This may be part of why that hasn't actually happened. Such a project would also attract more professional ornithologists, and this would in turn reduce their pro-IOC hegemony, and other reason they would not want to actually launch it. I expect that some will continue to belittle members by characterising this as "people throwing their toys out of the cradle". – Your words (though I do think I saw someone say "whining" later). Accurately observing and "belittling" are not the same thing, BTW. Nor can one camp constantly bash its opposition in insulting and emotive, aspersion-casting terms, then credibly claim it is being bashed. "It takes two to fight." That said, I've intentionally avoided terms like "tantrum", "fit", "crying", etc. For me the loss of even one experienced and dedicated editor over a matter like this is depressing. – Of course it is, even modulo the nature of organizational life cycles. Whenever you encounter people in wikiprojects trying to rile up others to go on some kind of "wiki-insurrection" over some MOS (or WP:AT or whatever) rule they don't like, please encourage them to reconsider. All they're doing is setting up strife that will probably make some editors want to leave, including among their "allies". It is not about the merits of either argument, but how the result is being imposed – It's being "imposed" the same way any other style/naming matter is deployed in content: Articles are changed over time to be written and named in ways that are consistent with the guidelines and policies. How else could it possibly be done? As to birds articles, this should have happened years ago (no later than 2012 for certain), but the process was filibustered by many of the same parties now threatening to leave (meanwhile some of them already quit editing shortly after "winning" their filibuster two years ago anyway, suggesting that once the sport/drama was over, some of them got bored and looked for a fight to pick elsewhere, though some may have also gotten busy in real life or something). the views of project members have been dismissed – To the contrary, they've been addressed painstakingly in excruciating detail, at a level reserved for serious considerations, the furthest thing from dismissiveness. The debate was very long, very in-depth and two-way. The possibly outbound WP:BIRDS participants who refuse to accept how this (finally) played out are the ones being dismissive and unreasonable. Just read this page and all this bad-faith invective on it. It reads like a nasty divorce proceeding where, really, only one party is being a ranty ass about it, while the other side calmly addresses their concerns in detail, only to be told again that they're simply being dismissive, as if the word could be redefined at whime to mean "whatever is not satisfying me". Volunteers don't ask for much in return, but they're not going to bother if their experience, knowledge, effort and views are not appreciated. – We're all volunteers here, and we all feel this way. It's especially irksome to professional writers, editors and linguists, who are naturally drawn to editing MOS just as birdwatchers and ornithologists are drawn to editing bird articles, to be told we're a bunch of idiots because we "just don't understand" (after we've clearly shown we do, and disagree on principled, factual bases) why they want to violate basic rules of English in an general purpose encyclopedia simply because some of their journals and books do so as a form of internal jargon, between fellow specialists within their field (and don't even do it consistently). Every "we feel this way about it" issue you raise is a two-way street, upon which you're projecting your victim script that demonizes the opposition as mindless and callous. Or supposedly it's the pro-capitalizers victim script and you're just a neutral observer, but you sure sound invested in the capitalization and defending is supporters. Meanwhile, neither I nor anyone else who spends any time editing MOS is demonizing the pro-capitalization people; we simply maintain (and the preponderance of evidence agrees with us) that they're inappropriately trying to force an external, esoteric academic pseudo-standard on all of us, because of a failure to distinguish between Wikipedia's needs and their field's journals' in-house style. WP:Specialist style fallacy covers why such an approach is logically and practically unsound. Its simply an error; no bad faith required.

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

I know full well of several people who have glanced at discussion like the MOS one linked here for about ten seconds and concluded "I will not edit Wikipedia - it is full of jerks" and walked away. Personally, however, I generally ignore MOS and take the line that it's either common sense and I do it anyway as it's something I learned from school, or a bot or gnome will make the change for me and I will accept it. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 12:01, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

{{weasel-inline}}.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

The MOS is full of idiosyncratic and unexplainable choices that are the result of complex compromises. If some style choice is not exactly "what I learned in school" I just ignore it and move on. It's a small price to pay for not having to argue style choices over and over on every article. —Neotarf (talk) 13:27, 3 July 2014 (UTC)

I'm also concerned about this. Birds apart, there's a small group of editors who feel it's okay to impose their style preferences on articles they otherwise have no involvement in, and it causes bad feeling. At least two ArbCom rulings asked editors not to edit-war over style, but perhaps we need another one. Or we could add a sentence to the MoS stressing that it isn't policy.

We already have WP:STYLEVAR: "Style and formatting should be consistent within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia. Where more than one style is acceptable, editors should not change an article from one of those styles to another without a good reason." But the style editors interpret "where more than one style is acceptable" to mean "acceptable by the MoS." SlimVirgin ^(talk) 03:54, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

True dat. Fewer rules better. I like to write "In March of 1965..." but that's not allowed. It must be "In March 1965...". I write "March of 1965" anyway, but someone will come along and change it eventually. Meh, I don't care, but if I objected strongly enough I'd be hounded off the Wikipedia I guess. It's human fact that people like things to be neat, and to make rules about stuff for other people to follow. Hobgoblins, little minds, and all that. But it's "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit", not "The encyclopedia that anyone can edit who writes like I do".

This doesn't apply to the bird thing and doesn't solve most problems, but as practical advice for some situations, I would say to all and sundry:

1. If someone makes any change to a Manual of Style page, and there hasn't been a very lively and very well-populated discussion showing very clear support for the change, revert on sight. Exercise your WP:BRD rights. Even if you personally agree with it, revert on sight. I do. If someone wants to make a rule that if we want to work here we must write "he graduated from Yale" and cannot write "he was graduated from Yale" or whatever (and I'm sure there're people who would love to do just that), make them run a proper RfC and get a proper close showing that most everyone agrees with that. Put the ball in the pettifogger's court. Watchlist as many MoS pages as you can stand and BRD BRD BRD.
2. People, please do not !vote in the discussions along the lines of "Well, I don't really much care, and I can kind of see both sides, but I suppose I kind of like 'he graduated from Yale' better personally, so Support. In other words, let's make that an absolute ironclad rule and drive those who don't like it from the project". Don't !vote like that and call out people who do. Explain the implications of making votes like that. Make them say how many people they're willing to drive from the project as the cost of their vote. Herostratus (talk) 06:31, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

In theory, you might expect that to get results. However, in practice I find discussing MOS issues drains my mental energy like a sieve, which leaves me less time to write and improve articles. I've never "got" the difference between em-dash and en-dash, and perhaps I never will. On my user page, I satirically note that extreme MOS zealots would happily gloss over a false accusation of murder and focus intently on a full stop appearing after a ref tag. I don't mind fixing up technical specs at work to confirm to some arbitrary formatting rule, but - unlike Wikipedia - I get paid real money to do so. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 11:01, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

So, unlike everyone else who edits Wikipedia, you refuse to obey its rules unless you're paid? PS: "extreme MOS zealots" is a blanket personal attack and assumption of bad faith against all regular MOS editors, and should be retracted.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

No, you've misunderstood. I'm just stating my personal view, which is that I find MOS issues dull and in general I find rules questionable unless I can understand how they apply to a particular set of circumstances. Satire can be cutting but I am certainly in no way belittling or putting down people who enjoy gnomish fixes that I'm generally not interested in. Chill. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 10:53, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

@Herostratus:

If you "don't care" if your "March of 1965" will be changed to "March 1965", why do you raise it as an issue and ridiculously claim you'll be hounded off the system if you objected? That's pointless WP:DRAMA. Back in reality, WT:MOS is largely formed an adjsted, day in and day out, from objections to the over- or under-breadth of one rule or another, and debate about these points is the principal way MOS evolves and changes over time. You're also sorely misapplying Emerson, as virtually everyone does who ever quotes "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds". We was referring to the foolish consistency of refusing to change one's own mind, in publication, over time when the facts, evidence or circumstances have changed, the failure of the "little statesmen and philosophers" he derides, the latter his critics for his own pattern of frequently changing his philosophical positions. Emerson, an experienced writer and editor, would never have agreed with the notion that a collected, multi-editor work (like an encyclopedia) should not have a consistent style guide used by its writers, and his own writing displays a great deal of editorial consistency, even across decades, despite his inconsistent views in his essays and lectures. Next, there is no policy requiring you to abide by every MOS rule in order to edit at all; please stop making up misleading nonsense like that.

To address your troubling numbered proposals:

1. See WP:CONSENSUS, WP:BOLD, WP:FILIBUSTER, WP:TE, WP:DE, WP:EDITWAR, WP:GANG, WP:BATTLEGROUND, WP:NOTHERE, etc. Putting together a revertwarring faction to do nothing but blockade all progress at MOS pages by blanket-reverting, day in and day out, simply to grind MOS to a halt, will get you blocked. WP:BRD is not a "right", it's not even a policy, it's just an optional process. It's one that often works, but only when it's used in good faith and sparingly. Also, if simply having a style, punctuation or grammar rule about anything would "drive those who didn't like it from the project", there would be no editors at all, or no MOS at all, just as a matter of basic reasoning. If this were how people reacted to linguistic rules generally, we could not have evolved language. Hyperbolic exaggeration isn't helpful, so please stop injecting it.
2. You'll probably also get blocked if you engage in poll-stacking by programmatically badgering people to change their !votes to reflect your wiki-political priorities. See WP:CANVASS. Asking people to clarify vague statements, in good faith is one thing, but browbeating them to take a stronger position in favor of your views is not permissible.

Neither of your proposals are viable, nor ethical. I can only assume this was all meant as some kind of Juvenalian satire, in which case you're no Swift. If you're serious, you need to strongly reconsider; if not, you should clarify that you're not actually advocating these combative tactics.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

@Slimvirgin: Of course STYLEVAR's "acceptable" means "acceptable within the context of MOS". Otherwise it would be perfectly "acceptable" to impose hip-hop slang and writing style as our default for articles on hip-hop music and subculture on the basis that that's what's "acceptable" in "reliable sources" about hip-hop, like hip-hop magazines and autobiographies and whatnot. There is no rational interpretation of STYLEVAR, to the extent it's not just ignored, other than that it absolutely cannot be used by specialist interests to force an external style on WP:OWNed articles by them or their wikiproject. This is just basic logic, really. In any system of rules, any provision with regard to what is allowed or not necessarily means with regard to the internals of that rule system, or it simply isn't a rule system at all. E.g. "a license-holder may operate any vehicle permitted by law" means within the same legal system (e.g. Ireland's); it's not a magic loophole to be used to drive a flame-throwing armored tank in Ireland just because some jurisdiction somewhere else, perhaps a small island nation, can be found that doesn't technically have a law against flame-throwing armored tanks in the hands of civilians with basic driver's licenses.

STYLEVAR's editwarred-in "within an article, though not necessarily throughout Wikipedia" wording is nonsense; the entire purpose of MOS (and AT policy, closely tied to it) is cross-article consistency, and everyone knows and accepts this and always has since these pages have existed (long before my time and probably before yours); within-article consistency flows from this naturally, and is almost never an actual concern (where it can be, it is covered by separate provisions, e.g. WP:ENGVAR, that actually have real community buy-in). I remember some RFC a while back to fix that wording, but it didn't arrive at a consensus replacement. Time to revisit that, if anyone's actually trying to take that wording at face value, which is logically impossible given what MOS is and does.

And this is emphatically a WP:OWN issue; your "articles they otherwise have no involvement in" phrasing indicates you are seriously failing to reconcile with policy your view of how much authority a wikiproject (or any other topically-focused group of editors) has over other editors on an article the former consider within their scope of editorial interest (hint: it's zero). There is no proprietary interest in articles or topics, much less one that would prevent the application of basic grammar, punctuation and style rules to content generally, just because some of that content happened to be in an article involving a particular topic, like birds. Every time an editor with a beef about MOS couches things in terms of "articles you don't even edit" or "a subject you're not an expert in", they've already conceded the debate by accident, on incontrovertible policy grounds.

We have indeed had RFARB cases about people (usually wikiprojects) getting into protracted fights and editwars over style, naming and related policy/guideline matters. The principal result of this has been an actual change in policy to put a stop to it, namely WP:LOCALCONSENSUS, which makes it crystal clear that wikiprojects or any other insular groups of editors cannot make up their own rules in defiance of site-wide consensus as codified in our policies and guidelines. Disputes like the birds flap (no pun intended) have protracted for as long as they have only because MOS people are much more reluctant to fire up ARBCOM machinations and are more committed to consensus building than is typical of parties in regular content disputes (e.g. the Turks vs. Armenians vs. Kurds vs. Azerbaijanis editwarring behind cases like WP:ARBAA2). MOS is an internal Wikipedia governance matter, not a routine editing kerfuffle, and has consequently been treated more patiently, at least from the MOS regulars. But if wikiproject people with axes to grind continue to try to tell MOS and LOCALCONSENSUS policy to go to hell, which is telling the entire WP community generally to go to hell, it will inevitably lead to RFARB cases, and policy already tells us which way those cases will go.

PS: There's also the ARBCOM's warning, arising from individuals engaging in hateful personal attacks in style- and naming-related debates, to not "personalize" MOS/AT disputes with unfounded accusations and assumptions of bad faith, on pain of discretionary sanctions; many complainants against MOS in this and other forums transgress this on a regular basis (cf. attacks like "extreme MOS zealots", etc.) They cannot pretend they're unaware of this rule and its consequences; MOS's talk page has a prominent warning about it at the very top of the page. Far too many threads with a MOS gripe to raise have resorted to these sorts of blanket "MOS editors are scum"-spirited attacks, often in their opening sentences, and while this has been ignored for over a year, it won't be for much longer. The WP:BATTLEGROUND mentality is turning toward a pogrom/cleansing mentality, and this has to stop, like yesterday. As an MOS-active admin (last I looked, anyway) I would have expected you to help rein this in, not encourage more of it with unsupportable vague accusations like MOS just being "a small group of editors who feel it's okay to impose their style preferences". Comments like that would seem to make you WP:INVOLVED in MOS/AT matters (and CONSENSUS and RS matters, etc. directly relating to MOS/AT), because it's evidentiary of a direct assumption of bad faith toward MOS regulars.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

... how the views of project members have been dismissed. Volunteers don't ask for much in return, but they're not going to bother if their experience, knowledge, effort and views are not appreciated. I couldn't agree more. The problem is that although we may gain some minor satisfaction by moaning about it here, it appears that nothing will change. It's a perennial issue with weakly regulated democratic enterprises (study the history of idealistic communes): an aggressive minority drives out the reasonable majority until the project collapses. Peter coxhead (talk) 07:23, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

@Peter coxhead: As I noted in responding in more detail to Tony Wills's many severable issues, this sounds like projection, since "an aggressive minority driv[ing] out the reasonable majority" to the point of collapse is precisely how the pro-caps WP:BIRDS camp's refusal to go along with MOS:LIFE looks to everyone but that camp. There's over eight years of constant objection by unconnected editors from all over Wikipedia and with all sorts of backgrounds being derided and browbeaten into complying with the off-wiki style demands of a tiny handful of WP:BIRDS editors (no more than maybe a dozen in the faction at any given time), whenever one of "their" articles was being edited, until the situation led to an untenable impasse and a breakdown of relations. (I've documented this in more than enough detail here, and that's without even finishing the analysis of WT:BIRDS's own archives, which are riddled with more proof of this.)

I agree that well-founded organizational life-cycle studies can be brought to bear on WP. I've raised that in a separate thread below. Your aggressive minority in the commune is generally going to the same parties as the "visionary" leaders and early adopters or their immediate prodigies, who necessarily propel an organization in phase one, begin to become insular and disaffected, less visionary and less leaderly, in stage 2 because they don't delegate well or accept systematic change, and ultimately have to either adapt or leave in stage 3, which is where WP is right now. These people are generally not MOS editors (those are a phase 2-3 group, mostly; perhaps PMA was an an exception). There is a high concentration of editors with a "founder", phase-1 approach in the larger, more entrenched wikiprojects, however.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Based on the results of various RFCs, it looks like the majority is the bunch that prefers that WP adopt uniform style rules, and the various minorities, like the birders, who want to have their own special styling for their own special stuff, are whining about not getting their way. I don't see much impact of any particular style decisions on editor retention, but the bickering about "a small group of editors who feel it's okay to impose their style preferences on articles they otherwise have no involvement in" as SlimVirgin misrepresents the issues, and Tony Wills's claim of "blind imposition", are not helpful. We could do things differently if we had an RFC showing the community consensus is to have each wikiproject make their own style guidelines, but that's not where we are. Dicklyon (talk) 17:20, 6 July 2014 (UTC)

• Conflicts cause stress, frustration, anger and fatigue, and may indeed have impact on editor retention. Most volunteers feel passionate about the parts of the project they work in. But I think it's incorrect and over-simplistic to single out Capitalisation of Bird Names or any other issue. When there are disagreements, tempers in the editing community can and do rapidly spiral out of control. The ethos of any MOS must be to achieve a consistent look and feel throughout the work that it guides, otherwise there is no point – the whole think will disintegrate and become a style anarchy that is in nobody's interest. From observing the above, it seems that some Birds editors are unhappy at not prevailing/triumphing in arguments at the MOS, and have come here to flag this issue as a cause of disharmony.

  The problem is more fundamentally about the way we communicate with each other, and finding consensus or groups of editors accepting rules that they may disagree with because of the greater good. Nobody can get it all their own way, but it seems some may have lost sight of this. If we look deeper, we need to see that style is merely form, so we should not let this get in the way of substance. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 04:42, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

Well said. Furthermore, I see no evidence of any kind over the nearly 9 years of this draining dispute that a single editor, on either side or otherwise, has left over this matter, who was not deeply involved in WP:BATTLEGROUNDing their personal viewpoint about it (even if they were also productive content editors), and who did not also give plenty of other reasons for leaving. The tiny number of editors who leave in part over style fights are leaving because they're not WP:WINNING and it frustrates their wiki-political goals. No one is leaving because a style rule at MOS is genuinely making it difficult for them to contribute to the encyclopedia. It is not hard to not editwar over trivial style quirks. It's not hard to use the shift key less. It is not hard to just click the en-dash character in the toolbox below the editing window. We all know that editors are free to ignore MOS rules with impunity, and many of the geeky ones are. No one is going to "hound" you if you don't put an en-dash where there should technically be one, or use American spelling when adding material to a British article, or capitalize a bird name. Others or their bots will just fix it later. (Note that is different from being a disruptive jackass who editwars to stop people from MOS-correcting their additions, or who goes out of their way to introduced such problems for others to fix, just to be WP:POINTy.) Seriously, all of this psychodrama is like grief wandering around looking to drum up a death to attach itself to.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:43, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

@SMcCandlish: see User:Chuunen Baka; I see no evidence that he or she was engaged in battlegrounding – their edits were overwhelmingly in article space. You keep going back to the substance of the bird naming debate; it's simply not relevant here. The editor retention issue is how to have these debates and make decisions in a way that alienates as few people as possible, maintaining the maximum of respect on all sides. It's a fact that Chuunen Baka is not alone in feeling bullied. Feelings matter. Peter coxhead (talk) 21:35, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

Feelings do matter. MOS regulars, who have feelings too, have quit for essentially the same reason (though often their plight has been worse - tendentious anti-MOS people have periodically enlisted sympathetic admins to harass us off the system with false accusations, topic bans, etc.) Just on the birds matter, lots of editors outside that project who've tried to get them to use normal English on the encyclopedia have felt bullied by the wikiproject's self-described "style warriors" (KvdL came up with that term). If people actually wanted to enforce WP:AE's discretionary sanctions against "personalizing" style/titling debates, at least half a dozen WP:BIRDS people could be blocked right now for vicious personal attacks and continued baseless accusations of bad faith. Everyone regularly at MOS is being quite respectful of these wikiprojects and their participants, and avoiding attacks, bad-faith assumptions, and accusations of disruptive collusion, at least within the last year. But people from quite a number of wikiprojects (some biological, some sports-oriented, etc.) are doing precisely the opposite, and spewing a constant firehose of what can reasonably be described as pure, unadulterated hate. And it's been going on for years, with impunity. No one at MOS wants to use legalistic process like AE, ANI, etc. to forcibly muzzle editors just because they're being disagreeable, while those very same disagreeable editors want to use every means at their disposal, including many that violate policy, to shut up anyone who disagrees with them (see #The MOS Conspiracy theory, below). Maybe Chuunen Baka (who did participate in these debates, just not frequently) has a right to feel put-upon, but so do many other people who since at least 2004 have been challenging that blatantly WP:OWN-violating faction behavior of some participants in that wikiproject (and others; I don't mean to single out the birds project, it's just what we've been talking about).

Chuunen Baka's "I quit" statement is a three-pronged personal attack on all MOS regulars in the same breath (and factually incorrect, to boot – no one involved in the debate was "ignorant" of why the project wanted to capitalize; we simply presented a strong rationale for not doing it here, and sourced the issue more convincingly). Even when it was explained to Baka, on his talk page, why calling all MOS editors "small minded" was a personal attack (which it is - ask any AE admin, and they'll agree that calling 100 fellow editors something insulting is 100 personal attacks at once, not magically zero attacks just because you grouped them into one blanket statement), he refused to accept it and just repeated the attack and added more of them. So, tell me again how he gets to claim aggrievement? A debate didn't go his way, he blew up on people, and he stormed off. Let's revisit this in a month or three and see if Baka's still not editing. I'd bet good money an editor that long-term and consistent will simply take a wikibreak. Some of us do this for a year or longer, usually in response to heated debates and after leaving a departure message very similar to Bakas. BT;DT, and the break can be quite refreshing.

This "MOS is making real content editors leave" claim people keep making is a red herring. Almost all of MOS's frequent contributors are also major content editors, and some of these anti-MOS topical editors spend more time in Wikipedia_talk namespace, where MOS/AT issues mostly get argued, than do the MOS/AT regulars.

Let's look at some numbers

Some quick fact checking, of the kind no one else bothers with because it's so much more convenient to just histrionically point fingers: I'm continually accused by wikiproject-ensconced style tooth-gnashers that all I do is push MOS and get in the way of "real content editors". But these stats don't lie: 38.6% of all my edits in all namespaces are directly to article content. Counting article talk pages, almost exactly 50% of my time is spent on articles. Factoring Template, Template_talk, Category and Category_talk namespaces, my activities on which are ultimately mostly content-tied work, that rises to 64.32%. While some of those are WP-internal templates and categories, plenty of my User namespace edits (2.8% of my total) are working on content drafts, and User_talk discussions (8% of my total) are about article content, so this evens out. Let's call it a 65% content-related, public-facing edit ratio. Now my Wikipedia namespace edits (i.e. directly writing policypages and projectpages, of all sorts, including how-tos, essays, etc., and responding to XfDs) accounts for 14.22%. But surely my Wikipedia_talk figures are through the roof, since that's where all this MOS argumentation takes place, either at WT:MOS, or wikiproject talk pages, etc., right? Try a paltry 9.86%, much of which is nothing to do with MOS/AT at all. Plug other usernames into that URL. What about that Tony1 guy who some people keep saying "controls" MOS? Mainspace: 59.7% (about the same as yours, Peter_coxhead: 58.7%), Talk: 6.5%, Wikipedia: 11.3%, Wikipedia_talk: 9% (Tony1 edits User_talk, again mostly article-related discussions, more than Wikipedia_talk). What about Dicklyon, another frequently accused "MOS overlord"? Mainspace: 59.1%, Talk: 20.8%, Wikipedia: 3.1%, Wikipedia talk: 3.6%. Even the especially attacked Noetica, one of the most focused MOS editors, was still a 31.1% Mainspace editor, and it was his largest editing block, and content-related edits were his 51.3% majority counting Talk, vs. 37.5% for Wikipedia and Wikipedia_talk combined). Chuunen Baka and Sabine's Sunbird both have a very strong mainspace focus. But KvdL (you have to know that WP:VANISHed user's original username to get their replacement one and use that to run stats on, and I won't provide those details since WP:VANISH exists for a reason), had 12.25% Wikipedia NS edit ration, plus 6.4% for Wikipedia_talk, and less than 50% mainspace. Most tellingly, have a look at Natureguy1980, the other recent "I'm quitting over this" editor, and the locus of suggestions to do an inflammatory exit interview in WP's Signpost house organ. His Wikipedia_talk ratio is 25.8%, higher than my Wikipedia and Wikipedia_talk percentages combined (24%)!

So, who wants to call us non-content editors again? Here's the real, kinda embarrassing truth: Those who get into WP:SSF-type naming & style squabbles with MOS/AT people fixate on any "enemy", and especially note his/her presence in style debates, do not regularly encounter that editor elsewhere because everyone's content topics of highest interest differ, and they then forget that to everyone else they themselves look style-obsessed because they keep popping up in style debates pertaining to whatever topic X that their wikiproject focuses on. They're pots calling the kettles black. It's instinctive human nature to attempt to impose patterns on what we observe, even when the patterns are illusory, and especially if we're under any form of stress; we're hardwired to blame, shun and threaten by default. This is exacerbated by our broader but equally in-born territoriality and tribe-formation instincts. These urges must be resisted in a collaborative work environment, and cannot be relied upon in judging others' character and motivations.

Anyway, I'm not sure what the editor retention approach is, as such, but "empathize exclusively and unquestioningly with some wikiproject editors who hate MOS because they lost a style argument, and support them while they demonize MOS editors and call for a mass revert-war" can't be it.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

The MOS Conspiracy theory

MOS is one of the most watchlisted pages on the entire system, and one of the most-edited policy/guideline pages we have (by far the most, if you count its various subpages). This idea repeated so many times, as an article of sheer faith, that some tiny oligarchy controls WP:MOS (and WP:AT, when style issues arise in article names), is nonsensical on its face. Very active MOS/AT editors like me and Noetica can disappear for a year or longer, with almost no effect, because the community as whole creates and manages it. Because of its importance and high level of scrutiny, it cannot be any other way. If you add something boneheaded to MOS/AT or delete something important, it doesn't take evil bad SMcCandlish to fix it; any number of people will revert or modify it. Only those with the interest and background for it participate in MOS frequently, but this is true of virtually every single page on the system, and in all of these cases including MOS (and WP:BIRDS), who the active people are – the ones at whom detractors want to point "conspiracy!" fingers – changes constantly, with very few long-term regulars after more than a year or two. All of this "MOS is some special cabal, some weird case that must be stopped" hysteria that pops up in style debates is the false pattern recognition that the human mind engages in. When things don't go our way more than once in a row in similar circumstances, we often conveniently look for a hateful collusion instead of going the more laborious but sensible route of checking to see whether our approach and expectations need to be adjusted. I see a lot of that every time this or a similar debate arises.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  21:45, 7 July 2014 (UTC)

PS: It really is a genuine conspiracy theory; see for example this bon mot from WT:BIRDS: "I think some of the most zealous style-over-substance supporters may well be long-term detractors of Wikipedia whose main aim is perhaps to destroy the long-term editor-base."[1]  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  00:11, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

• Wow. That's staggering. --John (talk) 09:43, 8 July 2014 (UTC)

And it's not just that editor. It's a common sentiment among (and almost exclusively among) editors in wikiprojects that have come up with "their own rules" (against WP:OWN and WP:LOCALCONSENSUS) to ignore something in WP:MOS/WP:AT rather than work to change consensus on what MOS/AT says and abide by what they say, as with all policies and guidelines. They don't even hide it; they'll tell you outright "we know MOS/AT says X, but at WikiProject Y, we came to our own different consensus to do Z instead." I encounter statements like this sometimes several times in the same week (most recently to do with horse breed article names and dog breed article names, both WP:AT/WP:DAB matters, and flag icon usage in association football tables, a MOS:ICONS matter). It's a "consensus is fine to pay lipservice to, but only as long as it produces the results we demand, otherwise raise the drawbridge and bring forth the catapults" approach. See also the recent proposal on this very page to use an anti-MOS tagteam to filibuster all MOS pages with a disruptive revertwarring campaign, and then browbeat all fence-sitters in MOS-related RFCs to !vote their way.

The continual personal attacks labeling MOS regulars "small-minded", "stupid", "bad faith", etc., flow like a river, yet despite clear discretionary sanctions notices about personalizing style debates, no admin ever acts on them even to issue warnings. Only MOS regulars get sanctioned, should they say something incivil or bad-faith-assumptive in exasperation or retaliation. This one-sided, anti-MOS administrative approach caused me to quit WP for a year, two other MOS regulars to quit for extended periods of time, and one of MOS's most productive, expert and even-handed major contributors (also a regular content editor, as I am) to leave WP permanently.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:50, 9 July 2014 (UTC)

Technological MOS conflict solutions

I wonder if automation might reduce some of the conflict. In an age of spelling and grammar checking software, is it not possible for the default editing tool to auto-correct to follow MOS in many or most instances? It may (or may not) be a big programming project, but that is no reason not to explore technological aids. If one contributes to almost any publication, one expects that the editors in charge will conform submissions to follow the work's MOS. Better yet, a software solution might even make it possible for readers to set their own MOS preferences for many, perhaps all, instances where there are variations that are widely used (e.g., DD-MM-YYYY vs. MM-DD-YYY) which would allow those with strong views to read Wikipedia in their preferred style. I view accurate content as the most pressing concern, but if there are software solutions to lessen conflict in other areas, I think they should be considered. • Astynax ^talk 00:18, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

@Astynax: Two different ideas, and both worth looking into. A "MOS checker" built into the editor would be very difficult indeed. On the other hand, I've long proposed using CSS, Javascript and templates to give both editors and readers more choice (e.g. UK vs. US spelling, different punctuation rules, etc.) I think various solutions of that sort are easier to implement. The ideas would definitely complement each other.

It could indeed resolve a lot of "experts vs. ignoramuses" (really "narrow topic experts vs. language/writing experts tired of being called ignorant by the former") style disputes. For, say, capitalization and/or hyphenation of species common names, you could have a template to wrap around a vernacular name like Chinese fire belly newt that allowed the user to render this as "Chinese fire-bellied newt", "Chinese Firebelly Newt", "Chinese Fire-bellied Newt" "Chinese Fire-Bellied Newt", even "Chinese Firebellied Newt", depending on what "standard" their field or simple whim demands, while defaulting to whatever best matches everyday English (the first example). User:Peter coxhead and I were thinking about ways to implement a testbed of this, but it kind of got put on the backburner. Anyway, I wouldn't get too in depth here; this isn't a tech development page or a place for developing MOS improvements.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  04:02, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

People already come by later (sometimes assisted with tools) to update text to conform with the Manual of Style, as has been mentioned above; the problem is some editors do not agree with having the text updated. Regarding trying to apply a given style based on reader preferences: first, this would not affect the vast amount of readers who are not logged in. Second, assuming a wide variety of style options would emerge (every WikiProject might develop its own set of options, for example), it would be difficult to develop a configuration interface that would not quickly become tedious to configure. Third, it would be tricky to deal with style options that mandated conflicting results (one rule might require upper case and another lower case, for example). Fourth, it would pose a significant performance problem, as different versions of the page would have to be generated and cached for each different set of selected style options. Fifth, using wrapper templates would complicate the lives of editors who edit the wikitext directly (in theory, the Visual Editor could be extended to help hide the insertion and editing of the wrapper templates). Without something visible marking up the text in question, the conversion process would be complex, as the code doing the conversion would have to understand the context properly, and so it's highly likely it would get it wrong a significant portion of the time. isaacl (talk) 04:29, 10 July 2014 (UTC)

That's a lot of caveats! 1) Yes, we'd have to have the "official rule" be something useful for our most general-audience readership; this feature would be mainly an editor retention tool, to stop people quitting over style pet peeves. 2), 4) & 6) It's only expected that the most give-me-my-way-or-I-quit editors would bother with this stuff. The complexity of it would probably discourage implementation and encourage collaboration, and it would only be deployed in a handful of die-hard cases like this bird caps business, and even then only until people just got over it and moved on. 3) Conflicting style rules would already be auto-handled by the CSS cascade. If you don't personally like the result you get, just change the load order in your user style page here (or change a true local stylesheet in your browser). 5) Meh; we all already use an enormous number of wrapper templates, so a couple more won't have any notable effect. Anyway, the idea is that this would mostly be a stop-gap, last-resort tool, not something to propagate willy-nilly.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  12:01, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

It would more likely be implemented with server-side scripting in Lua than CSS, but even so, you're assuming there is a linear order to apply the rules that makes sense, and I'm not sure that is the case. Personally (without checking), I don't encounter that many wrapper templates when writing article prose. Nonetheless, there are many words and entire phrases that would have to be wrapped to deal with language variants, punctuation (for example, all quotations with trailing punctuation could become candidates for wrapping), dates, and so forth. Regarding the performance and caching issues, once a wrapper is introduced, it has to be processed for everybody. I don't think this approach would be very cost-effective as a stop-gap tool; it would impose a great deal of overhead for the benefit of what you are postulating to be a small few, and yet still not work very well for that group of persons. isaacl (talk) 15:29, 29 July 2014 (UTC)

Request for Assistance

Hi. I wasn't aware that this project existed until a few days ago, but have been working on my own to encourage disheartened editors. I'm particularly interested in helping new-ish editors who are having some trouble adjusting to the Wiki way of doing things, and spend part of my time talking them through their difficulties. Generally I aim to play "good cop" where some other editor with "bite-y" tendencies has played "bad cop".

I've recently been working with a young (I suspect) editor who started with an initial burst of keen enthusiasm, but was a little careless and got called on this a few times. Nothing serious, I think, but the editor who called him on this was a bit of a perfectionist and decided to track his edits for a while, inevitably finding more errors and acting hypercritically. This led to bad feelings on both sides, but eventually calm re-asserted itself. The young editor, though, found himself deprived of his "auto-patrolled" rights (which he's recently tried to get restored, though the assigning administrator deemed this too early). However, over the past few months he's been working steadily, and has done a nice batch of article creations, generally on second-tier cyclists. Though these articles are not perfect they're reasonable starter articles, and clearly show that this editor is willing to work hard. In addition, his error rate is improving.

However, the editor is young, and seems to get easily discouraged. I've done my best to provide some positive support, but sometimes it's useful for an independent voice to give some encouragement too. With this in mind, I'd like to ask an interested member of this project to take a look at the editor's work, and, if they feel it's appropriate, to consider endowing the editor with some suitable laurels. For obvious reasons, I'd prefer if this could be done without reference to this conversation here.

Because mentioning someone on a talk page seems to lead to an automatic message for them, I can't give a direct link to the editor (because I'm hoping to do this discreetly), but his name is OldxTimexMusicxFan (without the 'x's), and you can get to his page by typing "User:" plus his name in the search box.

Obviously, I'm more than happy to provide similar assistance to other members of this project: I am strongly of the view that good contributions should be recognised.

Thank you for your help with this. RomanSpa (talk) 09:31, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the important work. It's difficult providing advice in sensitive situations, but anyone wanting a quick link can see WP:PERM/A. The real problem with discussing a user is that we're supposed to notify them, but that would not be helpful. The user is only notified automatically if a comment adds a link to a user page and a signature in the same edit (User:Example will be notified in this message). Johnuniq (talk) 10:14, 27 July 2014 (UTC)

Update Some recent additions at WP:Notifications#Technical details have contradicted earlier advice, and it claims that linking to a user page, or user talk, or user contribs will cause a notification if other conditions are satisfied. Johnuniq (talk) 00:22, 30 July 2014 (UTC) My confusion! Johnuniq (talk) 10:31, 31 July 2014 (UTC)

@ User:RomanSpa You are absolutely right...good contributions should be recognised. Just a suggestion but you might consider nominating "OTMusicFan" for an Editor of the Week Award. Just go to WP:WikiProject Editor Retention/Editor of the Week/Nominations and follow the simple instructions. ```Buster Seven Talk 06:51, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

Despair

I'm seeing 4 good editors leave or say they are leaving in the past few days. A couple in part over the Eric Corbett kerfuffle (not blaiming Eric here), a false accusation of child porn, another leaving because of a probable sock's disruptive editing. Dougweller (talk) 19:10, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Doug, don't despair. Just leave them a nice message, encouraging them to stay, or come back one day. All the best: Rich Farmbrough, 01:44, 2 August 2014 (UTC).

Oh I've done that. But they are all leaving or reducing their participation because of the conditions here. Maybe we should focus more on dealing with individual problems facing specific good editors - a bit like the article rescue squadron. Dougweller (talk) 07:21, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

I don't know whether it's something in the water or whether nobody can think of what article they're going to work on next, but the drama level on (especially) ANI, Jimbo's talk and Arbcom has exploded. This will end in tears (whom for exactly is still up for debate). The only advice I can offer is to ignore all dramas. Bury your head in an article and forget about the shenanigans. You will feel much better and as an added bonus, the encyclopaedia will get better. Everybody wins. Ritchie333 ^{(talk) (cont)} 09:33, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Maybe we should focus more on dealing with individual problems facing specific good editors - I think so and have said that before. I have seen the most valuable editors in the field of early Christianity (History2007) and Roman history (Cynwolfe) leave because of "the dysfunction of dispute resolution. It's just too exhausting" - Cynwolfe. All editors are not equal, the valuable ones should be protected, this site has got itself into the position where it is the number one resource for knowledge in the world, that is a huge responsibility but the way it is set up leaves it open to constant assault by ignorant / POV / fringe theory pusher editors who turn up and are treated with the same respect as neutral editors who have some idea what they are writing about. It is very very wrong.Smeat75 (talk) 11:47, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks. I can't bury my head this way, there are editors who need support and that I am supporting. And History2007 and Cynwolfe are good examples. Dougweller (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Sharing my personal experience on Wikipedia to the Editor Retention WikiProject. I am one of the (many) editors leaving or reducing their participation because of the conditions on Wikipedia created by admins like Dougweller and "his pals". My talk page talks about my experience in general terms. In short, it is my very strong opinion that Dougweller and admins like him should not be allowed to be admins and feel entitled to start, at whim, instigating an editor the moment he or she makes a small "very knowledgeable and well sourced" edit in an article after months of leaving or reducing their participation, and then go around campaigning just to paint them as outcasts. An example of a decent, unbiased, fair and problem solving admin is Master of Puppets that Jimbo needs to honor. I do not have the time or desire to give any more evidence, and I do not have time to deal with Dougweller ganging up to make this about me rather than the Editor Retention WikiProject. I just felt it was the right and courageous thing to do by saying what I just said in the hope that the culture will one day change on Wikipedia, but that's debatable. Worldedixor (talk) 11:57, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

This has nothing whatsoever to do with you and I have never used my Admin tools on you or suggest I would. I have no idea why you've come here unless it is to do with my trying to support an editor that you've tangled with today calling them two-faced and underhanded, the sort of language that does drive editors away. By the way, that editor seems to have reconsidered their post today to your talk page and removed it, but you reinstated it. Not really helpful. Dougweller (talk) 15:37, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Why should I contribute here and be a part of this community ?

I asked this question on my talk page a week ago, and haven't received any answer or response. I just want to ask everyone that why should I or anyone else edit/contribute here and be a part of this community ? Editing the encyclopedia by creating and improving articles and doing other maintenance/cleanup work is a good thing, but the negative atmosphere, fighting, insulting, grudges, hostility, ranting, abuse and many other things like that happen here frequently which demoralizes and eventually drives away the good faith editors. Why does this happen and why can't we all do something about it ? More importantly, in this type of scenario do you think I or anyone else can contribute here without being affected by it in any way ? When I joined Wikipedia, I did so with high hopes of improving it in any way I possibly could and be happy and proud about it. Over the past three years since I've been a member here, I've seen many editors and administrators leave Wikipedia of which many of them never came back. Therefore I want to ask everyone, why should I continue to edit/contribute here and be a part of this project and community ? What makes you happy while editing and being here ? Please feel free to share your thoughts and opinions on this matter, and also if you could share any type of experiences you may have had since you've been editing here. Thank you. TheGeneralUser (talk) 11:38, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

• For me, the name of the game is content. When other areas of the encyclopedia baffle me or anger me, I just find a sucky article, and spend an hour or two making it less sucky. Then I remember why I joined – to improve the world's most-visited encyclopedia, specifically its coverage of topics that interest me. Sure I am an admin, and participate in some maintenance areas, but I predominantly do that to "chip in"/"do my fair share" so others can work on content too. To reiterate, I edit so I can write/expand/improve articles; everything else is secondary. Go Phightins! 12:14, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
• I was an admin primarily to work on project banners, which at the time only admins could do. As a kid some years ago I grew up in a smallish city in the US plains whose libraries and access to information wasn't impressive - I honestly knew there were more things I was potentially interested in I couldn't know anything about because of lack of accessible information than those I could know about. And I also know that today there are several countries where the libraries I had access to would be objects of envy. I also once in a while catch some news from the national services of developing countries and have been surprised how much of the background info they have mirrors our own or is even directly cited to us. It actually scares me a bt that in some significantly large areas of the world we may be one of the few good sources they can access, but that is a motivation to me to help try to improve the information that they do have access to. John Carter (talk) 19:41, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

• For me, it is about content, free to the world. I know I'm not the greatest content creator, so I do what I can, and then found a calling so to speak, by trying to help those that do create great content. An advocate at times. Kind of the reason I started WER, why I patrol the worst areas for abuse at Wikipedia, and try to find solutions to blocking people when I can. Frankly, some days and even weeks, I don't feel like I'm making a difference. Some days make up for that. WER wasn't so I could share my wisdom on keeping editors, I don't have any. It was to share my struggle. I've taken a two year break myself, just edited as an IP but rarely then. Earlier this year I took a long break and wondered if I needed to come back, but in the end I did. So I ask these questions regularly of myself TheGeneralUser. Very, very seldom do I ask them or indicate my frustration publicly because I think it would be detrimental to the things I'm trying to accomplish and perhaps it might negatively affect others. Sometimes, I just need to change what I'm doing and unwatch all the boards and work on something else. So why do I come back? At least 51% of the time, I feel I cause more good than the bad that is done to me. I know it isn't much consolation, but you aren't alone in asking. Dennis Brown | 2¢ | WER 21:00, 15 July 2014 (UTC)
• For me, it is about making Wikipedia more effective as an encyclopedia, helping fix any problems (if I'm able) and, if possible, helping Wikipedia adopt more multimedia. Wikipedia has many problems, from lack of multimedia, to unstable funding, to loss of editors/contributors over time, and many more. You and your colleagues know the problems better than I do, I am merely an inexperienced newcomer. Eager to help improve Wikipedia, but unsure of how to achieve this.

Wikipedia is the world's virtual portal into useful encyclopedic knowledge. It is a primarily text-based encyclopedia that has become increasingly out-of-date as multimedia technology has progressed around it. Whether or not Wikipedia wants to facilitate the adoption of multimedia will be decided by consensus, but I for one think adopting multimedia is extremely important to ensure Wikipedia's long term survival. Unfortunately, I just finished a three-day camping trip with a close personal friend who co-runs the largest multimedia generation organization in Oregon (focused on making multimedia for non-profits), and he flat out informed me there was nothing he could do for Wikipedia unless they adopted an additional "educational-use only" optional license for multimedia that allowed him and his colleagues to make multimedia under "educational-use only"/"fair use" copyright law. The liability for him and for the Wikimedia Foundation would be too great to make educational videos, or indeed any multimedia, under Wikipedia's current "commercial use" license. He really wanted to help, but his hands were tried until this new "multimedia license" was agreed to. I strongly suspect there are many other multimedia creators who feel the same way. I don't know if we as a community could even change this policy even if we wanted to, as copyright policy is set by the WMF and permitting commercial use of Wikipedia's multimedia, for reasons that are still not entirely clear to me, is very important to them. I don't yet know the deeper reasons behind the WMF's position, or what else I am missing from this picture, that will require more analysis and thought, but I understand the initial appeal of keeping content "as free from restrictions as possible" and understand why that was proposed, adopted and defended to this day. However, as an empiricist, it seems to be my unfortunate position to have to point out that, based on the results to date, this goal has largely backfired from a multimedia perspective and has resulted in such a restrictive copyright policy at Wikipedia that multimedia generation, such as educational videos, are almost impossible to make. The most effective audiovisual learning tools available to us can't be created on our most popular encyclopedia. This is a big problem and is only going to get worse over time as the multimedia generation technologies gets even easier to use. There are multiple commercial and non-commercial entities that would love to replace Wikipedia as the world's number 1 encyclopedia, and our lack of multimedia puts us at significant long term risk. But we shouldn't be facilitating the adoption of multimedia because we're scared, we should be doing it because it is the right thing to do. We all know that, and indeed when I look back at the comments, suggestions and advice I've received to date (sorry for the ones I have not replied to yet), the overwhelming consensus is that Wikipedia probably should have more multimedia on it.

I obviously need to do a lot more background research before formally suggesting any Wiki-project on the subject, but my current extremely simple preliminary position is that Wikipedia is a non-profit Wiki-based encyclopedia, and should, in an ideal world, strive to be the best encyclopedia it can be. According to our beloved Wikipedia, the word "encyclopedia" comes from the Greek "enkyklios paideia", meaning "general education". Together, the phrase literally translates as "complete instruction" or "complete knowledge". According to the 18th century French Philosopher Diderot "the purpose of an encyclopedia is to collect knowledge disseminated around the globe; to set forth its general system to the men with whom we live, and transmit it to those who will come after us, so that the work of preceding centuries will not become useless to the centuries to come; and so that our offspring, becoming better instructed, will at the same time become more virtuous and happy, and that we should not die without having rendered a service to the human race in the future years to come." I share this dream of what an encyclopedia should be, and I propose that restricting the most effective methods of transmitting information, namely the incorporation of multimedia, is not in any encyclopedia's best interests.

I believe in the Wikipedia dream and want to do my part, however small, to help. Best, Jim Jim-Siduri (talk) 20:43, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

• When I edit Wikipedia I feel that I am contributing to something worthwhile, while at the same time improving my general knowledge of the world through the articles that I edit. The mixture of personalities and the diverse points of view among the editors can be disconcerting at times, but it can also be challenging. In my real life I am used to either being in control of my projects or working with small groups of people who share my interests and attitudes. I've never participated in social media because so much of it is trivial and shallow, but Wikipedia discussions are focused and goal-oriented (well, mostly). Each editor can find a spot in the community where his or her skills are useful. Passionate and strongly opinionated editors inevitably get involved in more of the drama than more laid-back people just by the controversy level of the articles they choose to edit. —Anne Delong (talk) 02:12, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• For me, its the people that edit and work here, the reality behind the aliases. Its the wonderful capacity for users to communicate, eloquently or poorly, with facts or with fancy. Does the negativity draw me? Only in the personal hope that I can be an assistant for resolution of conflict. Does the drama draw me? Not any more. I started editing in 2008 on the Sarah Palin article when she was first announced. I came to Wikipedia to find out who she was and I've never left. The arguing and the bickering and the cajoling was constant. With the daily-changing campaign in full swing, every day brought a new factor to consider, a new argument to win. Of course, it was inevitable to gravitate toward like-minded editors and gain a respect for their minds and their hearts. I still hold many of those editors as wiki-friends. I see Wikipedia as a community with characters as diverse as can be imagined. This is my Facebook. This is my Twitter. I come here just about every day. ```Buster Seven Talk 06:03, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• I edited WP for years without getting involved in the back-room stuff or even knowing about it until I was extremely badly treated by an admin (now thankfully desysoped).

There are over 4 million articles on en.Wki and when you are a user creating or editing uncontroversial content you are hardly likely to get involved in drama or even know what goes on behind the scenes among those who have chosen to be maintenance workers and/or admins. In those cases, we get involved in contentios issues, it's not pleasant work, it's a choice we make, and someone has to do it, but I believe it to generally affect only a small part of the work on building this huge encyclopedia. Those like me and Anne Delong and Dennis Brown, for example, and the volunteers at OTRS, who often find themselves in the thick of things may think otherwise, but I'm sure it's only a impression we get from having to deal with ugly customers and nasty issues - but I guess we obtain some satisfaction in resolving them competently and fairly.

Understandably, and inevitably, bonds do get created, so although WP is absolutely not a social media, there is some comfort in working as a team, just as there is in any other workplace or collaborative activity. Anyone who has been to a meet-up or a Wikimania will know what I mean. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 07:15, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• I once offered advice to a scientist who expressed frustration with how difficult it was to adapt to Wikipedia's procedures. I pointed out that if he helped build an article here, that work would be near the top of any Google search and would be maintained by others and likely to last indefinitely. By contrast, if he were to publish a page on a personal website, very few people would see it, and the page would probably disappear within a decade. Johnuniq (talk) 11:00, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
• Well life is short and it's important to do things that make you happy, and if editing the Wikipedia isn't one of them then for your own sake you might want to do something else. I dunno about "negative atmosphere, fighting, insulting, grudges, hostility, ranting, abuse and many other things like that". I guess you do see that some (just as you do everywhere else in the human world), but it's also possible to avoid it a lot I guess. I mean if you strictly work on articles, especially on non-controversial subjects, you don't get into a lot of fights. Also having a relaxed and patient attitude about that stuff is helpful.

While it's reasonable to hold that there's a larger and noble purpose here, there's also something to be said for not taking this too seriously. The Wikipedia is useful and fulfills its original stated purpose of "making the internet not suck" in that it makes it easier for people to look stuff up. If the Wikipedia didn't exist people'd just use Google, but it would take longer. And people are grateful for that, and if you talk to people outside Wikipedia you'll see that they find it useful and are glad of it. It's not really changing people's lives or the larger culture much, though.

So relax. I look at a lot of what I do as being instead of doing Sudoko or crossword puzzles or whatever, except that it's more satisfying in that I'm making stuff that's useful to someone, plus there's a modicum of interpersonal interaction which is, taken overall, pleasant. It's pleasant for me anyway because I try to be nice, take a relaxed attitude, and recognize that the other fellow is often right and even if not it probably doesn't matter that much. (I often enough don't succeed in this, granted, and like any person I can get grumpy). But if things here were stressing me out to the point that it wasn't fun overall I'd leave and I really can't counsel anyone in that position to stay. Why? Herostratus (talk) 12:19, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• A couple of editors above say "stay away from controversial subjects and you won't get into fights" and while that may be generally true, it doesn't always work, you can find yourself in the middle of a very bitter, prolonged, hate-filled feud over whether an article should be titled Persian cat or Persian (cat), the article on Don Carlos should have an infobox or not, or whether "Spanish-American War" should have a dash or a hyphen. WP is now the resource people turn to for information more than any other, that carries a big responsibility, for instance I happened to notice that the article on a fairly obscure opera,Handel's "Orlando" was getting over a thousand page views a month all of a sudden [2] and the article was little more than a stub, pretty useless really, whatever those people were hoping to find it is unlikely it was there so I have been working at improving it.Smeat75 (talk) 14:01, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

But the point is, how about just walking away? It doesn't matter if Spanish-American war has a dash or hyphen. It really doesn't! It's an interesting question and sometimes it's fun to delve into that and look at best practices elsewhere and have friendly if heated arguments about that if you're enjoying it. Otherwise, relax, go do something else! The world will survive, and there's plenty of other tasks here to suit all kinds of temperaments.

Patience, too. Cultivate it! We're here for the long term. Here's an example of both virtues (relaxing, and being patient) in a microcosm, since only two editors were involved: Talk:Norman O. Brown#So what was he?. Note where I left it: ("Tell you what. I think you're wrong, but I don't really feel up to going to the next level on this. You obviously feel strongly about this and who knows, maybe you're right. So let's let it go for now."). It's not that important to the point of getting upset about! Besides which, and here's where patience comes in, I came back 18 months later and the other editor was gone, so I changed it to what I wanted anyway. (This doesn't prove that the other editor wasn't right of course.)

It's not a panacea (there are plenty of things that are important to argue about, and sometimes you can't help getting caught up in contention) and I'm not holding myself up as a paragon (I do get involved in stuff and cranky about it way too much), I'm just saying these're goals to strive for for a happier Wikiexperience: 1) relax, and 2) be patient. Herostratus (talk) 18:50, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

• The number one reason I edit Wikipedia is the discovery, the learning and the better understanding I get from the research on the content...and that is the second reason. Content creation, article creation etc. I like the ability we have to creat completely new articles and am pleasantly surprised to find new subjects that have no article, which gives us/me room to add it.--Mark Miller (talk) 22:46, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• I contribute here because I read a lot out of innate curiosity, & find that I end up with a chunk of knowledge that I need to do something with. What better use for it than to add it to Wikipedia? And I've found that as long as I keep focused on that aspect of Wikipedia, I'm untroubled by what assholes do here, no matter who they are.

  As for conflict, Wikipedia shares with other Internet websites an overlooked feature: one must go to a given page or follow a link to it, to find out what goes on there. Let me explain with a pair of examples. If two people are having the Flame War to End All Flamewars at a specific URL, one can visit any other URL without ever knowing about it, or needing to know about it. On the other hand, if someone is doing wonderful things at a given URL, unless goes there & shares knowledge of that URL no one will know about it. Working on articles no one ever visits -- which are probably 90% of Wikipedia's articles -- gets awfully lonely sometimes. -- llywrch (talk) 16:23, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

• Why do I contribute? Currently I primarily write about chemistry, especially the elements: and that has been my primary focus on WP since about 2011. So there's that added bonus that my work will get seen by a lot of students, especially for important articles like alkali metal. And lots of students often go to WP for research. So if I can give them a good, solid article, that's great and it not only makes WP better, it also makes me feel happy. I don't really feel this so much for less important topics, like individual Mozart works (I've written quite a bit on those as well), complicated geometric shapes, etc. And also because I know quite a bit about this area and so feel that I ought to use that knowledge to help build this encyclopaedia. Quite a lot of my knowledge on very rare elements like the transactinides comes from reading articles, both on- and off-line – by putting the info on WP, I've saved future researchers time in searching, because they then have access to an outline and a list of sources. Double sharp (talk) 21:03, 9 August 2014 (UTC)