Dear all, I am opening up this debate on interactions with new users of wikipedia as I feel there have been alarm bells in this area which we can no longer afford to ignore. As such, the focus can be on any aspect or feature of wikipedia which affects how established editors interact with novice editors (and IPs for that matter). Other people are more than welcome to make new observations and slot in new proposals into the below. Cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:28, 4 October 2009 (UTC)
Rather than ambitiously try to make wholesale changes to the way editors interact with one another, I have attempted to focus on problematic areas in the algorithm of dispute resolution on the 'pedia from go to whoa. I am concerned that approaches such as this are too nebulous to be effective.
We had a recent poll on civility (June-August 2009), which suggested we are being too harsh on new users, and highlighted problems with incivility to new users at Recent Changes Patrol and Admin Noticeboard and Incidents boards
The arbitration committee often fields emails from users blocked after disputes have arisen after material has been deleted or removed, and have to remind them that the arbitration committee is the last resort after other mechanisms for dispute resolution have failed. However, if the early stages are not amenable to new users then we risk driving many potential editors away.
There is already evidence for a drop-off in new users, and although the evidence for incivility as a cause for this is only anecdotal, there are plenty of anecdotes.