User:RowanElder

I am a newcomer to Wikipedia who is finding it generally unwelcoming.

I came here to volunteer because of highly publicized problems Wikipedia is having retaining editors, and so this unwelcoming is interesting to me and directly relevant to why I volunteered. I had heard a number of gripes and horror stories but I wanted to see for myself if they were exaggerated or not. It appears they're not. I'm saying this explicitly because it's apparently typical for some minority of unwelcoming editors to stereotype "talk about unwelcome" as "an emotional fixation and purely personal issue" rather than understanding it as a legitimate public concern for an issue of prime importance to the future of the encyclopedia.

Given the general unwelcome, I will now generally avoid nonspecific engagement to avoid bad experiences. Please address me directly and signal commitment to politeness clearly, directly, and credibly in written tone off the bat (ie no performative self-contradictions like hostile rhetorical questions about assuming good faith or "thin skin" or similar), if you would like me to engage with any particular edit-related question or talk page discussion. I will not initiate questions and discussions.