And my support as well. These were up on the list of "proposed
changes" with zero consultation to the channel users, of which quite
a few are indeed against it.
The rules are FAR too draconian, and far too bureaucratic: it's
bureaucracy for the sake of bureaucracy.
I can understand no "off topic" chat, because of wikipedia-social,
even if I MASSIVELY disagree with it. But no discussion of individual
projects? What then? Everything is an individual project. Really,
what purpose does the channel have then?
-Swatjester/Dan Rosenthal
On Jun 16, 2007, at 4:06 PM, foundation-l-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
wrote:
Message: 6
Date: Sat, 16 Jun 2007 21:05:49 +0100
From: Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] #wikipedia changes
To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID: <f51fqt$le4$1(a)sea.gmane.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
Gurch wrote:
Sean has casually neglected to mention that
"off-topic" discussion
is no
longer permitted in the channel. And by that I literally mean that
entering the channel and sending one-line greetings to a couple of
users
will get you told, in-channel and via a bombardment of PMs, to stop
talking off-topic.
Let me add my support to this: off-topic chat is important and
should be
allowed. A variety of forums for off-topic chat between Wikipedians
should
be provided. Wikipedians are humans, not machines, and just like
all other
humans have a deep-seated need to socialise with their colleagues,
and to
discuss matters of shared importance.
-- Tim Starling