User hostility

[Maverick Nate]

Is it just me, or have users been getting more and more hostile towards each other lately? There seems to be an OVERUSE OF CAPS LOCK AND YELLING in all sorts of places, and there has been name calling (maybe not as bad as it could be, but name-calling none-the-less), mean edit summaries, comment headers such as "WHAT THE HELL!", and just overall rudeness.

I think that some of this stems from Bulbapedia not having a direction at the moment. Nothing is happening in the Pokémon world, so no one has anything specific to do. Thus, edits from new users are getting scrutinized because no one has anything to do, and reverted because no one wants to deal with improving them. Then, all these new users are getting pounded with warnings and the rude comments mentioned above, and scared away from future editing. This is a really bad problem.

I think that this is a serious problem at the moment, and we should at least talk about what is happening.

 

[evkl]

So, given that this is happening, what do you propose we do to give Bulbapedia direction? That seems to be the solution to your problem.

 

[Dialgarules]

I really don't have much to do on Bulbapedia, that's why I'm either having some kind of random converstaion with someone on the user talk, or continually refreshing the Recent Changes waiting for someone to make a bad edit that I can undo. If only Generation V would come out so there would be something to do. I'm a member of a Spanish-language Pokémon Encyclopedia called Pokéteca, and I hardly ever use the User talks because I'm busy making new articles and editing in the mainspace. Since Bulbapedia pretty much has everything you need to know about all the regions, those kinds of people (which includes me, I'm sad to say) are just probably bored. You're right Mavs.

 

[PDL]

I find it ridiculous that we apparently have "Everything we need". Everything can be improved upon. Information can be added to places, hundreds of of blank entries exist in the Pokédex pages alone.

 

[Dialgarules]

On Bulbapedia? Like which pages? The problem is, it's hard for bored people like me to find them without having to go through every page. Look, I'm just probably lazy, but that's how most of these critical people are. Only a few of them are actually by nature hostile; most of us are capable of making good edits, but we're just too lazy to go find the empty spaces.

 

[Maverick Nate]

I didn't mean that it is completely due to no direction, I just meant that with nothing to do, users will scrutinize everything new users do, and instead of improving it, it gets undone. I see so many undos in the recent changes. That isn't the whole reason, that is just one I thought about for a long while.

 

[PDL]

But we're just too lazy to go find the empty spaces.

That's pretty much the problem. The best solution I can give right now is to stop paying attention to the recent edits and actually look through the pages to improve. Or at least not be nasty about correcting an edit, it isn't like we're being paid for this kind of work.

 

[Dialgarules]

I've had my share of scrutiny from older users too. Before I learned the rules (because I, like most people, did not bother to read them when I registered, so I had to learn them the hard way) certain people were flaming me saying "If you keep this up, you'll be looking from the outside in." Then I put a "general apology" as in saying sorry for whatever, and I was flamed for that too. I finally decided to just take a break from BP, and came back, read all the rules, and went back into editing. I didn't enjoy that, and I feel like I shouldn't have scrutinized other people too. I wasn't thinking about what I had been through in my first week, I was just thinking about their bad edit. I could have left Bulbapedia and never came back, and that's what some people do after they get this criticization. We need to give new users the a positive impression: that Bulbapedia is a community, not a union of hostile animals.

 

[White Len]

Editing a page is just like writing a story. If you edit a page terribly and the users yell at you for it, you'll leave and never come back. Who knows if the user could have been a good one if you didn't yell at him...

It's just like criticising a story. If you put in all the bad point, you'll discourage the author and, who knows? Maybe if you didn't yell at him, he would be a famous author.

Bottom line: DON'T YELL AT THE NEWBIES>

 

[Politoed666]

This.

 

[Dialgarules]

There was one user who put in something about a "pre-ev of Arceus" in the Arceus article. I told him "don't put false info blah blah blah..." He put it in again. I told him "If you keep doing that I'm going to have to tell an admin." He did it again, I told Mags, he gave him a warning. He did it one last time, Mags blocked him for one week, he never came back. Now, with hindsight, I'm thinking, he might not have known how to use the User talk pages. He could have been a good editor, if we didn't forcibly eject him from what we call our community. If we just helped him understand the rules, he would probably be using Bulbapedia right now. It's just too bad, because he might have not even understood what he did wrong. He could have thought it was a fanon site or something.

 

[evkl]

There was one user who put in something about a "pre-ev of Arceus" in the Arceus article. I told him "don't put false info blah blah blah..." He put it in again. I told him "If you keep doing that I'm going to have to tell an admin." He did it again, I told Mags, he gave him a warning. He did it one last time, Mags blocked him for one week, he never came back. Now, with hindsight, I'm thinking, he might not have known how to use the User talk pages. He could have been a good editor, if we didn't forcibly eject him from what we call our community. If we just helped him understand the rules, he would probably be using Bulbapedia right now. It's just too bad, because he might have not even understood what he did wrong. He could have thought it was a fanon site or something.

Beyond telling people to read the rules, I mean, if they can't use their talk page there's not much we can do for them. There has to be some baseline of "what's acceptable," and if you completely ignore your talk page or don't read the rules, well, that's not acceptable.

 

[Dialgarules]

Well, I didn't read the rules (at the beginning at least) and I'm not blocked...yet. I know it's a bad example, but that's the only one I have. Sometimes, I wonder what Bulbapedia would be like if everyone got a second chance. Well, everyone gets a second chance, but not everyone wants to use it because they don't want to be a part of a place where a couple mistakes gets them blocked.

 

[evkl]

Well, I didn't read the rules (at the beginning at least) and I'm not blocked...yet. I know it's a bad example, but that's the only one I have. Sometimes, I wonder what Bulbapedia would be like if everyone got a second chance. Well, everyone gets a second chance, but not everyone wants to use it because they don't want to be a part of a place where a couple mistakes gets them blocked.

But look at this from my perspective, as an administrator--how am I supposed to run a place with, basically, no rules (because no one pays attention to them)?

 

[Dialgarules]

I'm not saying rules are a bad thing. It's just that sometimes, being unfriendly to new users makes them think that their edits are useless. Sometimes, they could have just made a simple mistake. Yes, admins are there to enforce the rules. No, it's not right to automatically assume that new users are bad users because they still are trying to understand how Bulbapedia works. Admins have been there for at least 6 months, so they know all the rules, and may have helped in the creation of some of them. If you've just been there for a week, and you only use the website for about one hour a day, do you think that you'd know all the rules by heart? Some people do other things beside use the Bulbapedia you know.

 

[evkl]

Nope, but we don't do insta-bans except for adbots. You have to screw up many times more than once to get the boot.

 

[Dialgarules]

I've screwed up many times and I haven't been kicked out of Bulbapedia. I guess that they weren't big screwups, but the new users don't make big screwups either. But, they do make the same mistake every time, so, yeah. I think I've been close to it, but I never was. As I said before, I could have left Bulbapedia and never came back, but I didn't. I was planning to just log off and never come back at a point, but I decided against it because I liked being part of the community. I've made friends on the Bulbapedia that I wouldn't have made if I left. I know the people here are good people, but sometimes, I can get kind of pissed with their comments.

 

[Lilac Hill]

Nothing changes.

Nothing ever changes.

For months people have been doing this. Getting a pissy with each other for no good reason. Doing a good job of yelling over the internet. Doesn't exactly encourage a good community either.

And something tells me nothing will change for a long time.

 

[evkl]

Nothing changes.

Nothing ever changes.

For months people have been doing this. Getting a pissy with each other for no good reason. Doing a good job of yelling over the internet. Doesn't exactly encourage a good community either.

And something tells me nothing will change for a long time.

Is there a cause, though?

Because if there is a cause, well, all causes are an effect of something else. We can try to fix this problem. Not saying we will fix it, but we're better off trying and failing than not trying at all.

 

[Martonimos]

There was one user who put in something about a "pre-ev of Arceus" in the Arceus article. I told him "don't put false info blah blah blah..." He put it in again. I told him "If you keep doing that I'm going to have to tell an admin." He did it again, I told Mags, he gave him a warning. He did it one last time, Mags blocked him for one week, he never came back. Now, with hindsight, I'm thinking, he might not have known how to use the User talk pages. He could have been a good editor, if we didn't forcibly eject him from what we call our community. If we just helped him understand the rules, he would probably be using Bulbapedia right now. It's just too bad, because he might have not even understood what he did wrong. He could have thought it was a fanon site or something.

You did all you could. And the block was only for a week. If we had given you that when you first showed up on BP for whatever reason, it'd already be over. When a guy receives multiple warnings like that and ignores them, there's not a lot we can do.

Is it just me, or have users been getting more and more hostile towards each other lately? There seems to be an OVERUSE OF CAPS LOCK AND YELLING in all sorts of places, and there has been name calling (maybe not as bad as it could be, but name-calling none-the-less), mean edit summaries, comment headers such as "WHAT THE HELL!", and just overall rudeness.

What do you mean, "recently?" This has been going on since before I got here.

My opinions on causes: Part of it is that a lot of our userbase is pubescent, predisposed to aggressive behavior for whatever reason. Part of it is that formerly nice users get so pissed off at the mean ones, they start being mean themselves (Nate's a good example of this). A lot of it is that there's a real "clubby" feel to BP. A lot of users have a "users who I like" list, and they're all pretty much exactly the same. People in the club look down on people outside of it, and the only way you seem able to get in is to share in their derision.