User:Worm That Turned/Rant On/Maturity

One of the more interesting concepts at wikipedia is that of "maturity". It is a term that is often used when describing editors personalities at forums such as the administrator's noticeboard, editor reviews and critically requests for adminship. Oddly, "maturity" on wikipedia does not directly relate to age, an editor who has never revealed his or her age on Wikipedia can be perceived as immature due to his or her actions, whilst another editor who has revealed themselves to be young can have maturity by the bucketload.

Because an editors age is not gathered by wikipedia, it is important to understand why "maturity" is so important and where it shows. Not having this mysterious personality trait of "maturity" is perceived as a negative in fora such as RfA, whilst having "maturity" is perceived as positive.

Why isn't maturity constant?
Wikipedia can be edited by anyone, creating a community of editors from many different backgrounds, cultures and ages. The concept of maturity will be different for every editor and I can guarantee you that every editor believes themselves to be mature. That includes you, reading this right now. If an editor or admin acts in an immature manner, they will qualify it - dismissing it as "humour" or blaming someone else, all the while believing that 'overall they are mature'. This is a perfectly natural human behaviour.

Professionalism
To many editors, Wikipedia is a serious business. They work hard at creating articles on subjects that interest them, and can often make hundreds of edits after many hours of research. Since they are working hard, they may well expect to see a professional atmosphere and anyone not adhering to the professionalism is likely to be deemed immature. Acting unprofessional in some situations (for example, the deletion of articles) will only serve to increase the tension, create bad feeling and cause future problems. "Immature" behaviour is one example of unprofessional behaviour, but it is by no means the only one.

Judgement
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk%3ARS1900&diff=148798520&oldid=148723973

Jimbo

 * I have no very strong opinion about it. There are people who behave in petulant, ill-mannered, and immature ways. They should not be admins. Whether there is a strong correlation between bad behavior of that kind, and age, I don't know. I do think that, in general, most of our admins should be college students or graduates. Some gifted and profoundly gifted young people would be equally qualified.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 20:22, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[]


 * Based on my long experience, the best admins tend to be: smart, thoughtful, kind, slow to judge, slow to anger, understanding, always sure not to overestimate their own knowledge of a topic or a situation, firm about quality, serious about the project. Some of those qualities tend, I believe, to come with age. But there are a great many exceptionally gifted young people who possess them as well.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 02:33, 28 June 2008 (UTC)