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A comment on Psychologist finds Wikipedians grumpy and closed-minded. Parent comment

Re:Psychologist finds Wikipedians grumpy and closed-minded by xsmasher on Sunday June 28, 2009 @06:49PM (#678193)
Agreed. I worked helpdesk for a few semesters in college. The first semester, I had a great time showing off, helping people format their floppies add page numbers to their term papers. The second semester, I got tired of the repitition and started to want for more challenging questions.

By the third and fourth semesters, I couldn't understand how humanity survives when everyone is so universally stupid. Nothing about the job had changed, but I began to realize that there can be no "forward progress" because a new batch of (understandably) ignorant freshmen appears every term.

I'd imagine the same jaded bitterness creeps into any situation where the senior users act as a bulwark against a constant stream of newbies. How can you prevent "Forum fatigue" from setting in?

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Re:Psychologist finds Wikipedians grumpy and closed-minded by mechanical_fish on Sunday June 28, 2009 @09:16PM (#678318)
How can you prevent "Forum fatigue" from setting in?

The same way you prevent burnout in any other endeavor. You must learn to enjoy the process as much as the result.

You take up teaching because you enjoy explaining things to curious but ignorant people, not because you're hopeful that one day your job will be finished because everyone will know everything.

A lot of the enjoyment comes from theme-and-variations. How many ways can you find to explain the same thing? Which way will work best, given the nature of the questioner in front of you? It's like music: You will play "the same piece" thousands of times, and yet each playing will be subtly different, and those differences are what keep it interesting.

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