Wikivoyage talk:Keep Wikivoyage fun

Suggestions

I'm very much a fan of the idea of a civility policy as outlined by this article. Some suggestions for additional material we may want to incorporate, and probably also reference in a "See also" section:

• meta:Don't be a dick
• MeatBall:AssumeGoodFaith
• w:Wikipedia:Disruptive editing

The overall idea, that editing here should be fun and that we should try to discourage behavior that creates an environment that isn't fun, is a simple concept and a great rule of thumb to drive discussion about behavioral norms. Some suggestions for organization would be:

1. Why Wikivoyage should be fun (overview)
2. Identifying buzzkills (how to identify when someone is making things less fun)
3. Coping with accusations of being a buzzkill
4. How to deal with buzzkills without ruining the fun yourself (both in terms of not being a jerk when doing so, and what actions to take)

Suggestions for better heading titles would be much appreciated as "buzzkill" may not be commonly understood among non-native English speakers. Also, should this article be moved out of userspace and tagged with {{draft}} so that others can edit it? -- Ryan • (talk) • 15:51, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I'll second a motion to put this out in the real world. Texugo (talk) 15:58, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I too feel it's important that we have a civility policy of some kind and your ideas sound great Ryan! Please feel free to use this page as a test bed if you'd like. --Nick ^talk 17:32, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I've moved the page out of your userspace so that others can edit it, renamed it per User:LtPowers [1], and added the sub-headings (tweaked slightly) that were suggested above. Please update, expand, or revert as needed - I'm concerned my edits may duplicate a bit too much of what is already present on other pages, so updates to keep things focused on "keeping things fun" would be appreciated. -- Ryan • (talk) • 05:59, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Rephrase?

I think this is a problematic phrasing:

"In addition, remember that a core principle of this site is plunge forward, so leave some room for contributors to experiment and don't immediately rush in to correct new users."

I will continue to rush in to correct new users when they do things in obvious violation of consensus guidelines on things like touting, external links, and editing or deleting standard section titles. Ikan Kekek (talk) 09:39, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Two comments: first, please update as needed - the intention with that line was to highlight the fact we want people to dive in and that some experimentation should be encouraged, but you're correct that advertising and major MoS violations should be caught early. Second, hopefully this page is being viewed as a guideline for behavioral norms rather than as list of rules to follow at all times. Looking at w:Wikipedia:Disruptive editing, the same caveats used on that page would seem to apply here: "It is a generally accepted standard that editors should attempt to follow, though it is best treated with common sense, and occasional exceptions may apply.". -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:06, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

I posted to the talk page because I want to discuss the most appropriate phrasing, not to unilaterally change it. And my problem with the phrasing is that I would like to remove it, rather than edit it, but maybe someone else can explain how the language at issue can be edited to make a useful statement that doesn't contradict the need to make edits to new users' contributions that are not compatible with the Mos. Ikan Kekek (talk) 17:43, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

"Whilst it is important to observe and retain the standards outlined in our Manual of Style, correcting others should, where possible, take the form of encouragement and advice from a 'critical friend', rather than immediate chastisement - we were all new once!" - how's that? --Nick ^talk 17:50, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Better. But I'd like some language about good-faith edits. Immediately warning seemingly obvious touters that such behavior can lead to their account being blocked, etc., is not out of line. Ikan Kekek (talk) 18:17, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this better? We want to stop touts as soon as possible, but if the goal is to "keep Wikivoyage fun" then we also want to be careful to not dissuade people from plunging forward, especially with new users. -- Ryan • (talk) • 18:42, 23 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes, it's better now. Ikan Kekek (talk) 00:58, 24 October 2013 (UTC)

Is this ready?

There was broad support for a policy page like this one when Nick suggested it in the Pub, and it seems to me to now be more-or-less ready. The broad strokes are that it provides some examples of the types of behavior that make Wikivoyage less pleasant, and outlines how to deal with those behaviors in a constructive way. While this isn't an actionable policy page in the sense that it doesn't contain black-and-white guidelines, the issue being addressed isn't really black-and-white either, so an essay on behavioral norms seems like the right approach, and it would seem to be a useful tool for dealing with User:W. Frank and similar users who have caused some consternation of late. Are there further suggestions? And if not, are there any objections to removing the draft notice and making this part of the site's guidelines? -- Ryan • (talk) • 01:36, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

You've done a great job with this page Ryan; I'd be happy to see it implemented (as much as it can be). --Nick ^talk 01:50, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Happy for the draft notice to be removed. Nurg (talk) 02:09, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I agree with the others. This is good work, and it's fine to run this now without the "experiment" notice. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:53, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Yes! --Danapit (talk) 08:59, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

It looks good to me! Texugo (talk) 10:14, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

I too think it is OK to remove the notice now. ϒpsilon (talk) 10:25, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Done. Thanks all! Please continue to update this page as needed. -- Ryan • (talk) • 16:31, 31 October 2013 (UTC)

Quitting due to good newly authored content constantly being removed

Swept in from the pub

In case there's any sane people left here, feel free to browse my history here and on WT (same username). I've had a gutful of this frankly rude and non-constructive content removal and quit. Perhaps you might consider reigning in this activity before it loses you more motivated contributors. See you all later and best of luck with the project. Pratyeka (talk) 02:05, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to see you go. Happy trails! And to anyone who's really interested in this, please feel free to look at Pratyeka's talk page and draw your own conclusions as you wish. Ikan Kekek (talk) 02:23, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I look at it as a sort of rite of passage. Like it's not a real wiki until you have to contend with things like petty tyrants and edit warriors and personal agenda-pushers. Welcome to the big time, Wikivoyage. :-) -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 03:23, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

The reason I believe in Wikipedia and Wikivoyage is that sites like these represent something akin to the Medieval method of collective authorship, complete with marginalia (the Talk pages), but no longer restricted to a small number of professional scribes and clerical university students, but open to anyone with web access. Anyone who has too big an ego to want to work collectively can't do well here, no matter how good a writer they are. That's unfortunate, but that's the way it is. It's a big worldwide web out there, and everyone who wants to can express themselves somewhere. Ikan Kekek (talk) 03:35, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I'm very sorry to see you go and I know you're big enough morally to avoid painting yourself into a corner if you do ever want to change your mind. Yes, it is very tough when sparkling prose and professional pictures imparting wisdom to the traveller are messed about by people not keeping our primary policy right to the forefront of their mind: the Travellers' viewpoint should always comes first in any dispute! and being positively unfriendly (I would except Ikan Kekek from that because I do know that - when he's not having a bad day - he can be very helpful). I know you had some happy Burmese days and I hope you continue to have happy Thai days! -- Alice^✉ 18:18, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Hi Pratyeka! Just looking at the small edit war that shows last in your contribution history, I have to agree that these historical images would be a bit too much on an already image-heavy page. How about taking a break to focus on something less controversial, for instance creating banners for Indonesian towns? Cheers! Nicolas1981 (talk) 05:12, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I do concern that the content added by some users is more 'general trivia' than 'travel guide content', and historical images should really go to the relevant Wikipedia article instead. I wonder if the scope of WV isn't clear and defined enough? Andrewssi2 (talk) 05:46, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

A look at this user's talk page plainly shows that the issue here is not how clearly defined our scope is, and that attempting to calmly reason with the user as Nicolas1981 seems to be doing is unlikely to do any good. The plain fact of the matter is that collaborating on a wiki is not for everyone, and this user's temperament is obviously not compatible with such an endeavor. The user has behaved provocatively and with a complete lack of civility (going so far as to call one of our long-standing admins an "asshole" [2]), showed a blatant disrespect and disregard for our policy (shrugging off objections to his/her use of first-person pronouns in Dordrecht by saying that he/she is "not really interested in policy" [3]), and angrily defied repeated attempts by other users to counsel him/her and guide him/her toward being a productive member of our community.

Sad to say, it's often better that people like this leave our community, rather than encouraging them to stay and, in all likelihood, continue to antagonize other editors and cause trouble in general. If it were up to me alone, this user would have been blocked a long, long time ago. It's not our job at Wikivoyage to be bleeding hearts. We give problem editors a certain number of chances to get with the program - and in this case, if anything, we gave this user too many chances - and if that doesn't work, they're out the door. It's not worth the effort; we have bigger fish to fry here. -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 06:11, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Even though this user is an admin on the English Wikipedia, they have been involved in some recent controversial actions over there: [4]. As I've said in my essay w:User:Rschen7754/You represent the English Wikipedia!, adminship over there certainly should not grant immunity to blocks/bans here if the community feels they are necessary. --Rschen7754 06:15, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

As a sidebar, one thing I'd like to know is how a user who has expressed such a vehement antipathy to the very concept of "policy" ended up an admin on en.wp. What do admins do other than policy-related stuff? -- AndreCarrotflower (talk) 06:55, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

In the early 2000s, it was very easy to become an admin there. --Rschen7754 07:05, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

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Must-read. --Saqib (talk) 07:18, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

Thanks, Saqib. Very topical! Ikan Kekek (talk) 07:24, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I am not familiar with this user, but was surprised to find, after a single interaction with this user in which I explained what I was doing and why, that I was named, twice even, as the reason for their leaving. The way they were putting the article together was very unlike the way we build articles, but they seemed unwilling to take the policies and practices behind that into consideration. Texugo (talk) 19:28, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

meta:Don't be a dick is a pretty good guide for dealing with these sorts of situations, both for the person accused of being problematic, and for ensuring that the accusers themselves aren't being "dickish". While the title makes it tough to cite without further inflaming passions (as the essay notes, telling someone "don't be a dick" is a dick move), I suspect that we will at some point need to draft some sort of civility guideline, and that essay might be a good basis for such a policy. -- Ryan • (talk) • 20:29, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

*Cough* - I wrote this for a previous issue, but perhaps a sort of crossover between this rather tame effort and meta:Don't be a dick might work? --Nick ^talk 21:47, 21 October 2013 (UTC)

I like the content of Wikivoyage is fun , although you are right to say it is pretty tame. I think meta:Don't be a dick would actually get everyone's attention and actually be a position that we could (intentional dicks aside) agree on. We should always however strive to remember why we are doing this, which is because it is fun. Andrewssi2 (talk) 09:31, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

Everyone likes Nicholasjf21's "fun" essay, so if we need a civility policy, it should probably be called something like Wikivoyage:Keep Wikivoyage fun. LtPowers (talk) 15:31, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

I am in full agreement with this. And if we could incorporate certain elements of the essay Saqib linked to, that'd be awesome too, just because that page was so relevant to what we've been dealing with lately. Something along the lines of "If you keep getting into arguments and threatening to leave, then you're clearly not having fun and you're making things miserable for everyone else. In which case, just leave." But stated more eloquently than that, obviously. ;) PerryPlanet (talk) 18:43, 22 October 2013 (UTC)

This page should not be policy

I'm a bit concerned that adding this page to category:Wikivoyage policies alongside the existing mass of inflexible, binding policy has the potential to do more harm than good to the project. Basically, Wikivoyage:Keep Wikivoyage fun#Are you being a buzzkill? is being used to attempt to shut down valid discussion by repeatedly linking back here from debate just to tell an opposing user "Don't try to force an issue" and "Be willing to let it go" as a means to effectively silence them, using this page as "policy".

Wikivoyage talk:Votes for deletion#Esperanto phrasebook deleted? is one instance of a discussion where this is occurring repeatedly:

• "Believe me, I understand the frustration, but part of working on a collaborative project like Wikivoyage is accepting that sometimes things don't go your way, knowing when to stop trying to force an issue, and being willing to let things go."
• "I say again: regardless of anyone's personal feelings about whether the article should have been deleted, the deletion was handled by the book and it's time to let it go and stop trying to force the issue."

Wikivoyage is a group of volunteers. Attempting to order these volunteers to "be willing to let it go" and order them to have "fun" when there is a legitimate discussion which needs to run its course will alienate contributors, which hurts the project as a whole.

Wikipedia is fairly obsessive-compulsive in indicating which project pages are binding "policy", which are merely "guidelines" and which are "essays" or the opinions of one individual user. Unfortunately, it seems that we're being a bit careless in this regard. We don't need a binding policy ordering contributors to be silent and have "fun" as that sort of heavy-handed approach is doomed to failure. K7L (talk) 21:16, 3 June 2018 (UTC)

Just Be Happy! Hobbitschuster (talk) 19:58, 4 June 2018 (UTC)

Invitation from Wiki Loves Love 2019

Swept in from the pub

Please help translate to your language

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--MediaWiki message delivery (talk) 10:12, 27 December 2018 (UTC)

The Conversation (AU): Wikipedia’s volunteer editors are fleeing online abuse. Here’s what that could mean for the internet (and you)

Swept in from the pub

I came across this article on The Conversation (Australia) this morning. I do think abuse is less of a thing here than on Wikipedia, but that can be largely attributed to a lower editor base. Still worth a read, though. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 11:12, 6 December 2023 (UTC)

I think the closing remark is important: "promoting healthy communication practices is critical […]". I think we have the healthy communication practices, as does sv-wp. As the project grows, this needs to be supported by formal structures, such as the mentor system used on some Wikipedias and consistent sanctions against violators. I hope a community that backs up an editor subject to toxic comments helps quite a bit, and if the attackers are just trolls and newcomers, while the established users back up the victim, they will feel a lot better than if some established editors are among the attackers. –LPfi (talk) 10:43, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Agreed; this is the beauty of smaller wikis, especially regarding sanctions. --SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 10:44, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

I think en.wp does a hell of a lot better than most of the social media platforms insofar as toxicity is inherent to any large-scale keyboard social engagement experience. Yes en.wv doesn't generate much abuse because we're small. But if it ever really developed here, then I think en.wp's approach is something to be emulated, assuming that at that point we'd be much larger. Toxicity is an issue generally on the internet, and the fact that Wikipedia only gets occasional press is in a perverse way something to be admired (it's Alexa #7 and portrays pretty much every controversial issue ever!). Brycehughes (talk) 13:47, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

Yeah it’s nothing compared to X. SHB2000 (talk | contribs | meta) 00:17, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I agree that size matters. Here, during a typical month, we have about 900 editors who make one edit (or a couple of edits), and about 150 editors who make a moderate-to-large number. You wouldn't expect anyone to be able to name editors in order of volume (if you're curious, the top five recently were DPejano, Grahamsands, LPfi, Lazarus1255, and Rogeliomnl24 – the first and last in that list are new accounts), but it's small enough that you recognize names and can learn a little bit about them as individuals. I think the human-scale community is one of its strengths. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:22, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

There have been occasions of severe hate speech, but they have in most cases been rolled back at sight. /Yvwv (talk) 22:47, 7 December 2023 (UTC)

If you think smaller wikis are more immune to toxic communication, from my personal experience, I can tell you that's very naive. Wikispecies is a even smaller project than Wikivoyage (by a factor of two) but I essentially left Wikispecies because people formed cabals and became really defensive when one of the cabal member was challenged. When a critical mass is achieved (very easily in smaller wikis, as WMF describes similar threats as "community capture"), they basically have free rein over any discussions and votings happening on the wiki with no consequences or sanctions for any wrongdoing. That prompted my slow departure from Wikispecies and pivot to Wikivoyage. OhanaUnited^{Talk page} 20:04, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I'm sorry to hear about that awful experience, but am glad you choose to spend your time with us. Ground Zero (talk) 23:35, 8 December 2023 (UTC)

I can imagine Wikispecies being rough, just by the nature of it. You're right, it's not really the size of the Wiki, or rather size is only one factor in predicting toxicity. Brycehughes (talk) 14:00, 9 December 2023 (UTC)