Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-08-13/WikiProject report

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I do not agree with user:Mr. Stradivarius' statement that "If all parties to a dispute were always perfectly civil, then there would be no need for dispute resolution. The parties would simply look to the policies and guidelines..." because I think that looking at the policies and guidelines is not simple even for people who want to do this. Wikipedia structure is too complicated for new editors and the barriers to become a Wikipedian are great. I am glad that the barriers are being lowered. I hope that the new dispute resolution workflow system proposed by user:Steven Zhang and others will both let people ask questions in appropriate places or perhaps direct them to policy in user:the wub's new help page redesign. I feel that many disputes happen because of horrible user interface, and that if people instinctively found what they wanted when they came to Wikipedia then disputes would be lessened or averted. Most people only become uncivil when they are frustrated, and I do not think it is reasonable to expect users to remain completely civil when they are frustrated. Blue Rasberry (talk) 13:55, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Of course we can't expect everyone to know all of our policies and guidelines, especially users new to Wikipedia. I fully agree that Wikipedia can be a very confusing place for new users, and it's certainly not helpful to blame new users for their lack of knowledge. Quite the contrary, we should be helping new users wherever possible. I really was talking about editors who are perfectly civil - and no-one's perfect. A perfectly civil editor would always be willing to listen to advice, and would educate themselves about policy if they made a mistake. But we are all ignorant to a certain degree, and we all have our lapses, and it is for this reason that dispute resolution exists. At its heart, I regard dispute resolution as a process of education; educating users about policy, about community norms, about better ways to negotiate, and so on. In many ways, disputes are the perfect teachable moment, and if we handle disputes well we can do a double service for Wikipedia: we can get improved content, and more clueful editors, who might go on to educate other users in turn. I hope this goes some way towards explaining my comment in the report, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask. — Mr. Stradivarius ^{(have a chat)} 15:44, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Can you be specific about an instance of "the horrible user interface" that would lead to a dispute? (I'm asking from a "What should we change" prespective) Bawolff (talk) 16:38, 14 August 2012 (UTC)[reply]