Evil and stupid
From DoWire Wiki
This is arguably a wiki best practice. See also political wiki.
It is common to hear objections to a policy that anyone can edit, because people are afraid of vandalism. Vandalism, however, is mostly harmless and frequently useful.
- Removing vandalism is a first "good edit" - an easy win - for a newbie.
- teaches people to be bold
The best practice to defuse fears of vandalism is to vandalize. Add ridiculous statements, obscene remarks or dubious claims to pages that new users, stakeholders and potential users will likely see. Include a link to the most juicy part of the insult.
Almost everyone who sees the insult will be irresistably compelled to follow the link. Use those pages to teach the most important wiki best practices.
Contents |
example
Example: place
- This wiki is evil and stupid
On the home page of your wiki.
Almost everyone who sees the insult will be irresistably compelled to follow the link. On that page "evil and stupid" place the following text, or something like it:
evil and stupid
Greetings, user. This is a wiki. Somewhere, somehow, someone has found something evil and stupid and linked you here. It must be true, because you followed the link. If it wasn't true, you would probably have just edited out a rude remark from the previous page yourself. You would not have complained to anyone else, after all, you could fix it in less time than it takes to complain. As you know, rude remarks are mostly harmless. As you also know, allowing evil and stupidity and bad edits to go unchallenged, is not harmless. YOU MAY EDIT THIS TEXT OUT NOW.
pass it along
Once you've learned the secret of this page, pass it along: add a link to evil and stupid on some other page, especially one that someone else is complaining about. This encourages them to follow the link and edit out the text that doesn't do much to enhance the page's meaning, such as that above.
praxis
Once a user edits out "evil and stupid" once, they have learned the lesson, and can pass it along. BE SURE TO RESTORE THE EXAMPLE HOWEVER SO THE NEXT USER GETS THE SAME EXPERIENCE.