User talk:Laowai88

Hello Laowai88! Welcome to the English version of Wikipedia
Thanks for your contributions so far, we hope that you will stay and that you will find the collaboration enjoyable. I am Worm That Turned, an editor who's been here a while. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that started in 2001 and is free for all to use and edit under certain guidelines and principles that all users must try and adhere to. Lots of these principles and guidelines are listed below. Click on the link next to the images for more information.
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This is your Talk page where you can recieve messages from other Wikipedians and discuss things with them. At the end of your messages you must put your signature by signing with four ~~~~ or by pressing or in your interface. Do not sign in the articles themselves as those messages will be deleted.

Laowai88, you are invited to join other new editors and friendly hosts in the Teahouse. An awesome place to meet people, ask questions and learn more about Wikipedia. Please join us!

If you need anything else, let me know! Worm^TT · (talk) 10:20, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

My Talk Page

In response to your feedback

Hi Laowai88. I'm sorry to hear that you feel experienced editors are hostile. I'm not familiar with your situation, but if there's anything I can do to help out, feel free to ask, I'm an administrator here and knowledgeable on policy.

I see you say that "Arguments are won by those who know policy best, not by who is right" - well, policy is set by the community, through a discussion process which results in consensus. Every member of the community is invited to discuss any areas that they have problems with. We do try to avoid arguments such as "the truth", because truth is such a relative term, two sides of any debate can believe there side is "true", instead we try to represent everything neutrally, and let the reader decide.

As I say, I'm not familiar with what's happened, but if you'd like to discuss further, please don't hesitate to contact me.

Worm^TT · (talk) 10:23, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

 

The goals and policies that you mention are noble in their intent. In practice, it works quite a bit differently. This article is a perfect example. That sounds great however that isn't how many editors behave. They treat unregistered users as second class citizens and those who know proper procedure as superior. Indeed that is the only reason I created this account, to try and escape that. I recognize that there are many articles that tell them not to do this, but they still do. My feedback was not intended as a criticism of the quality of the articles on policy - but as a criticism of what many people actually do. Laowai88 (talk) 10:31, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

One thing you could help me with. Is there a place where I could recommend changes to Wikipedia to improve this sort of thing? I tried to have a look around but found an overwhelming number of pages and instructions. I'd like to suggest some rules for the way new users are treated. Laowai88 (talk) 10:37, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

There certainly are problems with how IPs are treated here, and it's something I try to work against. The problem is that most of the vandalism on wikipedia comes from IPs, simply because most of the edits come from IPs. There are however some very good editors out there who edit anonymously.

If you have any actual ideas of how to combat the problem, why not start a discussion about them at the WP:Village pump (idea lab), or if you have something you'd actually like to propose something, at the WP:Village pump (proposals). There are an awful lot of pages of instructions, so if I can be more of a guide, you know where to find me. Also, the Teahouse I mention above is a great place to ask questions. Worm^TT · (talk) 10:46, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Having said that - there are no firm rules on wikipedia, indeed one of the firmest rules is to ignore rules. What needs to be done is change attitudes - and if you have any ideas on how to do that, I'd be very interested. Worm^TT · (talk) 10:49, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

Thank you. I will go to those places and try and start a discussion on the topic. I started with a response to you however it became quite long, so I'm just going to copy/paste this to those boards, but I'll leave it here as well :)

I'm going to suggest some things that will probably be very controversial and will be difficult to get through, but will really help to solve some key problems on Wikipedia.

One is that people be encouraged to signup with Facebook or other ways of proving their identity - and that systems be put in place that encourage this, to make it so that 'username' editors are looked at with the same disdain that IP's are now. This works to greatly reduce hostility and personal attacks on sites all across the internet. Anonymity makes people say things they wouldn't otherwise say, no matter how many policies you create telling them not to.

Next I want to suggest a vast simplification of the policies and noticeboards so it doesn't take the equivalent of a Masters degree in WikiPolicy to be able to carry on a discussion without being silenced and buried in a mountain of WP:THIS and WP:THAT arguments or to figure out the proper place to take an issue or problem.

These changes would work together to make people kinder in general and to newcomers as well as to make it far easier for newcomers to make sense of what is expected of them and how they can contribute constructively. Laowai88 (talk) 11:19, 30 March 2012 (UTC)

I wish you luck with your ideas - hopefully, if you put them in the ideas lab, people will discuss them. Linking through to Facebook has been strongly resisted in the past - because we're trying to create an encyclopedia, not a social network. Also, people are very protective of their privacy (and therefore anonymity) and when you do research, Facebook does an awful lot of tracking.

As for simplicification of policies, it's a lovely thought, but the question is how to go about it - do you delete some, or find a way to categorise them all? Which ones do you delete? again, very difficult, because almost everything has some amount of value. Noticeboards, there's some good templates which list the ones you might need, like this one

It helps you find the right noticeboard to go to. Then there's the old croanies who've been around for a while and have already mastered them - you can always ask us! Worm^TT · (talk) 11:34, 30 March 2012 (UTC)