Wikibooks:Please do not bite the newcomers
From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection
New contributors are prospective "members" of Wikibooks and are therefore our most valuable resource. We must treat newcomers with kindness and patience--nothing scares potentially valuable contributors away faster than hostility towards them, for any reason. Newcomers, by definition, lack knowledge about the way we do things -- most of us were newcomers once(*), and many of us still consider ourselves newcomers after months (or years) of contributing.
[edit] Please do not bite the newcomers
- Even if you never were a new contributor, understand their value to the community.(*)
- When new contributors make some of the common "newbie" mistakes, such as forgetting to put titles in boldface, or do not add wiki-links to useful phrases, try to correct the mistake, and politely point out some avenues for learning on the new contributors's talk page. Leave a greeting on their talk page in order to let them know that they are welcome here.
- New contributors are often hesitant to make changes, especially major ones, such as NPOVing and moving, due to the fear of damaging Wikibooks. Teach them to be bold in updating pages, not to be annoyed by their "timidity".
- When leaving comments on your corrections of "newbie" mistakes, try not to make hostile comments about the newbie's ignorance. Do not (if you can avoid it) scream out "Another Newbie Without A Clue Forgot To Bold The Title!!!!!" If you feel such errors frustrating, don't correct them, just let them pass (but silently). In many cases the newcomer who turns into a contributor will be the most diligent in hunting down all his early misformattings. And if that does not happen, there will still be someone who actually gets satisfaction out of wikifying "pathetic stubs".
- When you give advice to new contributors, tone down the rhetoric even a few notches from the usual mellow discourse that dominates Wikibooks. Try to make the newcomer feel genuinely welcome, not as though they must win your approval in order to be granted membership into an exclusive club.
- Remember that writing a Wikibook is hard to do right. There are going to be a number of new contributor experiments in Wikibooks that go way beyond even just learning how to edit and the minor political hierarchy on Wikibooks. What new contributors need is a mentor and not a critic. If you see common mistakes being made, instead of complaining about recurring issues, try to write some help instructions for future "generations" of new contributors, and point these newcomers to those help pages.
- Assume that the new contributor wants to help Wikibooks. Just because they do not know all about our standard editing practices doesn't mean they aren't willing to learn. Give them a chance!
(*) It is possible for you to have never been a new contributor. For example, if you had already contributed to wikis that worked on similar principles, or if you were so afraid to edit that you RTM'd everything in sight before adding a comma. Neither is cause for such pride as to look down on enthusiastic newcomers.
See also: Newbie
