Goodbye : (
editHi - after reading *lots* of WP over the past 20 years and really loving it, something clicked and I decided to try my hand at contributing in mid 2021.
- I knew from the start that this is not just a website but an 'institution' with its own history, quirks, etc. So I spent several hours per day for several days reading the guidelines and browsing talk pages and reading about how WP works. Read up on its history, listened to talks by Jimmy Wales & the recently departed CEO, even looked through the strategic plan and financial statements.
- I had read that many new editors are frustrated, so I started small. My first edit was a trivial addition to an article about Pamonhas (a Brazilian snack), mentioning the jingles pamonha street-vendors play, as one was parked outside my window driving me crazy at the time. Either that was fine, or no-one cares.
- My second edit was when I happened to see an article in the news about one of my former university professors, who is now a director of the Brazilian Central Bank (ie. sits on the Brazilian equivalent of the US Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve), looked him up here to see what he had been up to and was surprised to see there was nothing. I figured this would be a great opportunity to try my first page creation on a topic that would be uncontroversial (a high ranking public official whose existence can be easily verified, but not an elected politician likely to inspire hordes of trolls) but that would also actually be looked at (an article by a new editor on a living person). Wrote something like a 3 sentence article with a couple of citations of major Brazilian media articles about his confirmation by the Brazilian senate and the upcoming end of his term. It was deleted in about 1 day saying he wasn't 'notable'. I was expecting criticism, tips on correct formatting, citations, etc., but not what appeared to be a double standard - all current US FED board members are deemed worthy of voluminous articles. Imagining that this might have been an honest mistake, I posted to the help page that was provided. The response basically reiterated the rejection, that I should do more work, 'learn the trade', and that my 'accusation' of US-centrism was baseless, etc.
- The End - That was probably my last significant contribution.
Just to unpack this in case it's ever useful for anyone:
- Perhaps there is some serious fault with my article that I'm missing? If so, hours spent reading incredibly long guidelines plus two messages from other editors still don't convince me that there's anything wrong with the article. It appears the editors dismiss the subject's notability out of hand and ask that I add more citations to 'prove' his notability. That doesn't make sense because citations were provided for each statement from top Brazilian media outlets, and the citations clearly show this is a Senate-confirmed high ranking public official. More citations won't change the official's position in government, which is the basis of his notability. If the objective is to simply count links, we're better-off using Google. Now, I understand that a longer article with more citations is better, but the solution for that would be to add to the article, not delete it.
- Perhaps I can try another article? I have found the system for talking to other editors, the interface for editing (even the WYSIWYG isn't great) and the overall design of non-article pages incredibly confusing and fiddly even though I can code and use git. So I'm not keen on investing any more of my time now on esoteric markup if my edits aren't even being kept.
- Perhaps I was unlucky? I had read several people complaining about so-called deletionism and bias in the notability criterion. I didn't pre-judge - this was a test to see for myself. Perhaps it was a matter of chance, but I'm not running an academic experiment here - personal experience has confirmed my reading. Done.
- Perhaps I'm being oversensitive? It's not something I'm usually accused of. I enjoy lively discussion even when there are strong disagreements as long as they are focused on the substance on the issue at hand (e.g. well-moderated forums such as Hacker News), but not when I feel people are talking past each other. I tried to explain why this person is notable, provided the sources. There was no discussion of 'look, but this source isn't ideal because... ', or 'yes, the members of the board of the US central bank all have huge pages, but that doesn't necessarily imply that the members of the board of the Brazilian central bank should have pages, because... '. So if the discussion is not productive, and this isn't an obligation, no reason to stick around.
- Perhaps I'm giving up too quickly? I work with platforms that involve community contribution. My experience is that even when you do your very best to encourage viewers to become contributors, it's still hard. Based on this experience, I believe if WP has a decent number of editors who, faced with a first experience like this, do persist, it is only because WP draws on a massive base of 5B monthly visits.
I'm a huge fan of Wikipedia, and so I hope I'm wrong, but based on my professional experience, with a UX like this, eventually things go south. Thank you to all the contributors who jump through the hoops to add to this resource. You are amazing.
Best of luck!
Alan