[Wikipedia-l] Indoctrinating (was Educating) newcomers

Thu Nov 21 08:14:10 UTC 2002

Poor, Edmund W wrote:

>Erik,
>
>The reason the debate is not over, is that we old-timers have a responsibility to educate newcomers.
>
>I have "adopted" Lir as a mentee, because I believe she really wants to contribute. Please join me in gently (or firmly) coaching her about Wikipedia standards such as naming convention, NPOV, etc.
>
There's no need to be so damned paternalistic!  You make it sound as 
though the only thing you need to do is to insure that Lir does 
everything "our" way, and that newcomers should not be re-opening 
debates because we settled that a year ago before these newcomers came 
aboard.  I fully expect that some of these debates will repeat 
themselves, and will go on for years before there is a consensus.  This 
will be especially true for naming conventions.  There is a broad 
appreciation that NPOV is a good thing, but there is great diversity in 
just what that term means.

If Lir or any newcomer comes along and questions one of our conventions, 
that opinion deserves respect just as much as the opinions of 
long-standing contributors.

Eclecticology