Wikipedia Experience

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It seems to me that a lot of Wikipedians spend most of their time searching for and reverting vandalism. What this does is foster an environment where existing pages are protected and it is therefore difficult to have a reasonable discussion on how to improve an article. In other words, it is generally assumed that any edit is vandalism, quickly reverted, without any critical assessment of merit. What I hope people think about when they read this page (if anyone actually does!) is to take a few minutes before reverting edits, consider intent, and modify the revisions to make it more palatable. Or simply add some discussion on the article's discussion page. My opinion is that Wikipedia is set up well to mediate disputes, but this process gets corrupted by those who are unwilling to listen, understand, and cooperate.

I also find it interesting that Wikipedians will post comments on-line that they would never say to someone face-to-face.

Mc roach 00:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)