Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia/Stressbusters: Difference between revisions

Browse history interactively

← Previous edit Next edit →

Content deleted Content added

VisualWikitext

Inline

Revision as of 00:53, 28 April 2006

Shortcut

[[:|WP:ESP/STRESS]]

What we do

The "Stressbusters" was founded by User:Exir Kamalabadi to investigate the cause of wikistress.

Stressbusters participants

Add your name to the list - with so much enthusiasm for it (as shown above), it's hard to keep track of who's involved! HappyCamper's cursory glance...it looks like these are participants:

5aret
Ban e s
Bratsche^{talk | Esperanza}
Brian New Zealand
Celestianpower ^hablamé 20:09, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Dakota ^t ^e 19:44, 10 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Davidpk212 20:00, 17 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Essjay · Talk (Ex officio)
Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza
FireFox

Gryffindor 22:09, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

J.Steinbock (Talk Page)

JAranda | watz sup 04:24, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

JDH Owens^{talk | Esperanza} 19:16, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

K-UNIT 01:28, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Krashlandon (e) 02:42, 24 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Mamawrit es ^{& listens} 09:47, 10 October 2005 (UTC) (like my new signature?)[reply]

--M ^o P 07:54, 20 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

MOE ^E^psilon 03:32, 17 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

-- Natalya 18:09, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Omni ND 18:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Paul August ☎

R e dwolf24 (talk—How's my driving?)

Sean|Bla ck 04:17, 2 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

--Slipknot 2 22 01:12, 12 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ter e nc e Ong 15:18, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Tijuana Brass^¡Épa!-E@ 23:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Titoxd^(?!?) 22:47, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

T e nnessee Wood

In the search for WikiStress

Searching for WikiStress was a bit more difficult than I thought. I haven't looked into this very much, but one can use Google to search Wikipedia, and restrict the search to a particular site like this:

To search only in English Wikipedia, type in site:en.wikipedia.org <stuff you want to search for>.

Now, I've tried various things like "wikistress", "I'm upset", "I'm sad", plus "October 2005", but these searches are not as refined as I thought they would be. This is most likely because the search is not based on contextual semantics. Anyway, it's a start.

Plus, I didn't even know there was a WikiStress 5! It seems that the people who have this are not actually stressed out, but rather like the picture instead. Or at least, this is my very preliminary interpretation of their current usage. --HappyCamper 00:31, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm...Exir has volunteered to head up the WikiStress initative, so perhaps the two of you could discuss better ways of finding stressed Wikipedians. -- Essjay · Talk 20:41, 5 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Go to WP:RFM. The users that requests meditation usually has a high stress rate (or so it seems)--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 06:18, 6 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Go to WP:TINMC. In fact, bookmark it. Helping destress people there might already solve their problems. If you have people getting into stress due to conflict, dunk it on that page so that someone can look at it. (And if things get really tricky, there's also some pros always watching and willing to help out). :-) Kim Bruning 11:21, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Investigating the cause of wikistress.

When someone has a high wikistress, all we do is to suddenly rush to their talk pages and posting words of comfort. I don't oppose that. But that shouldn't be the only thing that we do. We should also investigate the cause of wikistress. So I decided to start a project for investigating the cause of wikistress. Anyone intrested in participating?--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 01:26, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I wonder if there is a way to pre-emptively determine when WikiStress comes in? I think there is. What might you be looking at here? --HappyCamper 03:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, we should first determine the cause of wikistress. What I am doing here is to find a way to prevent stress before someone actually gets stressed out. The goal of this project is to prevent stress, akin to vaccinating against a disease--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 03:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Count me in! Jaberwocky6669 03:40, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Of course I will count you in! Just go and investigate the cause of wikistress. You can also discuss with us the way to prevent wikistress--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 03:46, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Could we create a 'conference room' of sorts? A sole page devoted to setting research goals, methods, and the like? Jaberwocky6669 03:50, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I have to ask essjay about that--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 04:01, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Are we focussing on internal or external stresses? --HappyCamper 10:42, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Forgive my English, but what are the differences between internal and external stresses?--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 13:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

In this context, an internal stress would be a stress caused by Wikipedia, or something relating to Wikipedia. An external stress would be something from a user's life outside of Wikipedia, such as a job, a bad relationship, or something else Armedblowfish 02:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please...can I be counted in too? (With a small voice) Ban e s 12:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Everyone can!--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 13:09, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Thats great. If I may then, I think HappyCamper means being stressed in the real world is closely linked to stress here on Wikipedia. Is that what you mean, HappyCamper? Ban e s 14:07, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I think this is a great idea. Paul August ☎ 16:43, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'm in - as long as I can be "Detective Inspector FireFox" :P FireFox 17:04, 7 October 2005 (UTC) [reply]

Of course you can have a conference room (and you don't have to ask me, I'm just a figurehead ;-) ) What about Wikipedia:Esperanza/StressUnit? If you'd like, I'll make you an official Esperanza Stress Unit insignia. ;-) -- Essjay · Talk 20:39, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Ooo wow... sounds good. FireFox^{esp 20:43, 7 October 2005 (UTC)}[reply]

Count me in. I'm confused however by the two lists of members above. Why two? --Celestianpower ^hablamé 20:09, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Because I got confused :-) Feel free to merge the two lists together. --HappyCamper 20:53, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Coffee image

By the way, for those using the coffee image, I've created a template to make it easy: {{Cafe Esperanza}} -- Essjay · Talk 21:17, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

By the way, I added a lot of categories to the Alerts page, so it's easier for us to find users who are a little bit stressed out. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:28, 7 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

And I've created a Stressed Users category for easy listing of users who have been identified as stressed. Titoxd^(?!?) 07:13, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Reporting that {{Esperanza Voyage}} is ready, and adds to Category:Stressed Users. Titoxd^(?!?) 22:49, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmm...I think we need to change the phrase slightly. It sounds too mysterious...too much like a fortune cookie :-) --HappyCamper 22:58, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

What do you want to put there? I can't think of anything... but if you think of something, tell me, or go ahead and be bold. Titoxd^(?!?) 23:00, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I changed it... --HappyCamper 21:02, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I saw. Good work! :) Titoxd^(?!?) 01:03, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Internal and external stresses

I'm using terminology in a new context here. For Esperanza's purposes, let's say an "internal stress" is anything which causes a user to appear stressed out due to something happening on Wikipedia. That is to say, the stress is directly caused by something on Wikipedia.

An "external stress" is say, someone coming home from school or work, having a really bad day, and taking it out on Wikipedia/Wikipedians.

I don't know...just an idea...Personally, I think we can do this just by analysing edit counts without looking at the contributions themselves. People who wish to leave tend to decrease their edits in a particular manner. Although this method will not be foolproof. --HappyCamper 03:37, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Blah blah blah...I don't think we really need this jargon anyway :-) Stress is stress! --HappyCamper 16:17, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

List of stressors

Let's brainstorm here. --HappyCamper 16:18, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

POV pushing
Being put up on RFC
Being scrutinized, such as in peer review or FAC
Being "WikiStalked"
Being nominated for Adminship/Bureaucratship/MedCom/ArbCom et cetera...
Opposing a nomination of any sort
AfD voting with sockpuppets
Not being able to get an FPC or FAC approved
Debating on the various deletion pages such as AfD - especially when it comes to contentious issues such as schools
Getting a new article (or any article you are involved in general) AfD'd/TfD'd etc.
Being signed up for too much (i.e. too many WikiProjects)
Being falsely accused of something such as biting newbies or violating a commandment such as WP:POINT
Being falsely accused of sockpuppetry.
Being on the receiving end of personal attacks
Being bothered by annoying Vandals and Trolls
High profile Vandal interventions.

This needs to be a bit more specific to Wikipedia I think. This list is too general - I mean, if any of these happened to me in real life, I'd feel pretty crummy too. Need more refinements! --HappyCamper 17:05, 8 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Hmmm... The list is a start. I personally think that it might need to be refined, but it is pretty good. Well done Happycamper!--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 12:00, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

PS. I have a question though... What is being Wikistalked?

I am borrowing a concept - part of it means getting unwanted attention on Wikipedia. Essentially, some editor insists on following your contributions around, and say removing them or modifying them to irritate you. You tell them to stop, and they still bug you. They might make a bunch of sockpuppets with offensive usernames and draw attention to you. --HappyCamper 14:19, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

You wanna know what Wikistalked is? I can tell you all about that if you care to listen, but it would be a long talk. Yes, I definetly think that points: personal attacks, vandals, trolls, wikistalked, and the likes should be really important. I will help anyone that is the victim of such unacceptable behaviour, because I think Wikipedia unfortunately lets those kinds of abusive users way too much leeway and freedoms, there is no satisfactory mechanism. In the real world such a person would have been socked a long time ago, sorry but it's true I'm not going to mince my words when it gets to such cowardly users hiding behind the internet. Gryffindor 21:33, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

This is a small cause of wikistress in comparison to everything listed above, so I don't know if it belongs here, but an overloaded watchlist is easily overwhelming. -- Nataly a 16:19, 27 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've noticed that one or two rude people can really add a lot of stress to someone, if they're persistent. And one or two kind people can take a lot of stress off. Maybe we should look for examples of rudeness, and leave kind notes for people who were on the receiving end? What do you think? Sarah crane 20:20, 6 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I've started doing that on User talk:Commander Keane, User talk:ScienceApologist, and User talk:Jim62sch. (I stole the garden image from Natalya -- Thanks, Natalya!) Does this seem like a good idea? Sarah crane 15:17, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The real thanks should go to Fir0002 for taking it! It's certainly a relaxing picture, I'm sure the recipients have appreciated it. -- Natalya 03:37, 8 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

More discussion

The very existence of wikistress tells us things about the nature of wikipedia itself and some of its users. First about its users, why do certain editors allow themselves to become stressed about something that they can just turn off and walk away from? Second, what kind of a hold does wikipedia hold over those certain editors? I know personally that in the past I have allowed myself to stress over things that weren't worth stressing over. However, before and after those times I have just shrugged it all away. Is it that we hold too much pride over our contributions? (I am a rambler but eventually I may tie all of this together. DOnt worry about my grammar in this particular instance.) The existence of stress may be a good thing! It tells us that people care about wikipedia -- even though they may care about their contributions moreover. Just as a marriage without arguments is abnormal a wikipedia without stress is abnormal. THis is all I have for now more to come Jaberwocky6669 | ☎ 05:54, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

I'd like to venture to say it's all of the above. All of it plays a role. The interaction on Wikipedia is sufficiently realistic and richly complex that it causes this to happen. It's easy to get attached to what we contribute, and it's easy to get stressed. After all, we are only human - and when we are attacked, we tend to be defensive. I'm blabbing here too (but it makes it spontaneous and creative and much much much more useful) but it's worthwhile noting that ultimately, sometimes we just don't want to get hurt - even if we are hiding behind a pseudoname, there is still a part of us that always shines thorough. Let's face it - we do care about Wikipedia, and when we're accused of hurting it in anyway, it does feel bad! I don't think the majority of intellectuals here edit-war for the purpose of getting a kick out of it - they edit war because they truly believe that what they say is fact and for the betterment of Wikipedia. It's a hard pill to swallow if someone says to you: "You know, you're not right!"

Anyway, more ramblings...but very very useful. Once we are done, the trick is to go back and comb out all the verbs and adjectives - then, we will have a very good list to work with. --HappyCamper 15:18, 9 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why Wikipedians should avoid claiming WP:POINT

Hmm...more analysis...I think the easiest one to address is "POINT".

Even though the page WP:POINT (P)exists, I don't think it should be used. It should be used for the sake of recognizing that there is such a thing. However, accusing someone of breaking this rule is in my mind, akin to politically accusing someone of having a "hidden agenda". If accused of P, in some sense you are cornerned, or even felt obligated to answer. If no answer is given, it is perceived that the recipient indeed was trying to violate P (which makes it even worse). This is very hard to dissolve away, and I think there are better alternatives than using this. Unfortunately, it is all based on context... --HappyCamper 19:52, 10 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Avoiding claiming WP:POINT can make a lot of users feel less stressed out.--Exir Kamalabadi^Esperanza 10:17, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

That's a good idea :). Obviously claiming bad faith is bad too :) Ryan Norton ^{T | @ | C} 10:21, 11 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

These things do serve an important function. Perhaps we could agree that WP:POINT and accusations of "bad faith" should be used:

very very rarely,
only with very good cause,
only after several attempts at engaging the user in civil dialog,
respectfully, even then. E.g. "You appear to not be editing in a constructive way. Regrettably I have to refer this dispute to the ArbCom. I hope this can be resolved with a minimum of ill feeling"... --Singkong2005 07:29, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Interesting user essay

I haven't checked to see if this user is a member of Esperanza but nonetheless I found this essay: Falcon Kirtaran's Numerical Representation for WikiStress. Might be usefull for our fight of wikistress! Jaberwocky6669 | ☎ 21:41, 11 October 2005 (UTC) [reply]

What an interesting concept. I am currently at 1.25. But, I am not sure if that is good or marginal or I am going to explode--though, I feel fine :-). Although I am not sure that Falcon's category encompasses all the possible things that could stress someone, I think this individual has thought about Wikistress in such a way that they would be an asset to the Stress Unit. >: Roby Wayne ^{Talk • Hist • E@} 15:22, 13 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

At this time mine happens to be -1! Please don't be jealous you worry warts! =) Jaberwocky6669 | ☎ 17:01, 13 October 2005 (UTC) [reply]

I have figured it out

The cause of wikistress is simply the time that things take. Nobody is stressed by a one second vandal fix. Its the POV pusher, the persistent vandal, the person who goes the extra mile to piss people off that causes wikistress.--Urthogie 13:01, 18 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Totally true. I think a rule should be established to BAN people who push POV, and who Harass other users (Is there such a rule?)--Exir Kamalabadi 00:05, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Why I wasn't active for so long

I started the stressbusters initiative, but soon I was inactive. Why? Because China banned Wikipedia. Well, now I found a way to waive it. Just thought I should make it clear. So, well... I'm back.--Exir Kamalabadi 00:03, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

The true source of wikistress

I think the true source of wikistress lies in the stress reciever, not the stress deliverer. Simply put, It is the person who feels stressed out that is the problem. If someone annoys you, why bother with him/her? Just delete every message that she/he sends. If he says something rude about you, don't say something back. Just ignore. --Exir Kamalabadi<sup><font color = green>Esperanza</font></sup> 00:21, 26 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I somewhat agree. The aggressor only wants the agressee to respond negatively, thus letting the agressor know he has accomplished what he set out to do. But something like harrassment or wikistalking or anything of that extreme nature cannot and cerainly should not be blamed on the victim. K-UNIT 01:40, 5 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]
In my situation, I added a lot of material to an article. Then someone deleted this material and left a rude note. I couldn't just ignore the guy or all my work would be lost. And I couldn't just revert without talking, or I'd be getting into a revert war. The guy was very rude and inflamatory. So sometimes there's only so much you can do, unless you want to give up on the article. Sarah crane 14:48, 7 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 #<b>[[User:Tijuana Brass|<span style="color: #FF4500; font-family: Times New Roman; font-variant: small-caps;">Tijuana Brass</span>]]<sup>[[User talk:Tijuana Brass|<span style="color: #228B22;">¡Épa!</span>]]-[[User:Tijuana Brass/Esperanza|<span style="color: #228B22;">E@</span>]]</sup></b> 23:11, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
 #[[User:Titoxd|Tito]]<font color="#008000">[[Wikipedia:Esperanza|xd]]</font><sup>([[User_talk:Titoxd|?!?]])</sup> 22:47, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
+#{{User:Tennessee Wood/Signature}}
 == In the search for WikiStress ==