Wikipedia Adds "WikiLove" For Newbie Editors

mikejuk writes "Wikipedia has a cunning plan to make wikipedians nicer to each other — its all about WikiLove. They can click on the Love button to make each other feel good about contributing anything from an article to an edit. The idea is that this will encourage newbie editors to stay and contribute rather than slink away into the rest of the web because their contributions get deleted and derided. Perhaps all we need for world peace is a big enough love button."

Re:Government Sponsored?

[edumacator]

I wish slashdot had a +1 love button.

Like, +1, now WikiLove

[rbrausse]

I don't get the idea behind such features - where are dislike, -1, WikiHate?

Those one-click-feelgood buttons are not even a valid substitute for real feedback...

Millions of little fiefdoms

[Anonymous Coward]

I discovered recently just how petty and arrogant some Wikipedia contributors are. I attempted to clean up an article, nothing major, just fixing some awkward sentences that were poorly worded, confusing, or grammatically incorrect. Less than half an hour later it was changed back and I received a message from the author of the parts I corrected telling me that it was "his" article and that the sections I fixed were already perfect and needed no changes. I made my case for keeping my edits, explained that I made the article read better without changing any facts, and then changed them back. The next message I got was an angry post insulting me personally, and telling me that there was no way I was more of an expert on the subject ("or the English language" he actually said that) than he was. This is probably one of the worst examples but it can't be the only one.

You can't make people like that "love" each other. They are protective, bitter, autists who spend all day refreshing "their" articles and reverting the edits of anyone who attempts to change them.

Re:I tell you what

[twocows]

I had a similar experience adding some minor details to a page. I wasn't particularly busy that day, so I quoted enough Wikipedia bureaucracy at them to fill a book and they finally left the details in.

The problem with Wikipedia is just as you say; too many people have their little pet pages and to get anything done you need to throw the book at them. Nobody's going to bother doing that.