[Foundation-l] #wikipedia

[Dejan Čabrilo]

On Wed, 2007-06-20 at 08:59 +0100, Sean Whitton wrote:
> Firstly, the guidelines were drafted and left in the topic of
> #wikipedia for several days. No real feedback or edits were received
> and so we thought it would be okay to go ahead. Perhaps if the
> community had got involved in discussion there, we probably would have
> allowed more time, but it didn't seem to be happening. So, there was
> no community input despite the opportunity for it.

Did this not lead you to believe that the guideline was not advertised
properly? After we heard about it, many people got very upset. So, I
suggest you give us another chance to give you input on the topic. The
guideline page is protected, and when I asked an op (rather harshly, I
must admit) in #wikipedia to change the /topic, to reflect that most of
us don't agree with it, he didn't do anything about it. 

My question still stands: why do you get to make decisions for all of
us?

> Secondly, I agree that the off-topic guidelines were originally worded
> far too strictly. I've since toned down the guidelines (I didn't write
> them originally) to try and give the impression that was intended,
> that extensive off-topic talk is discouraged, not that we are saying
> "talk about anything but Wikipedia and you get banned". Please take a
> look at them now and see what you think.

Like I said before: I hang out in that channel because I like the wit of
the people in it. If we are not allowed to dwell into out conversations
to a point in which we discuss the political philosophy behind the
religious dynamics among the royalty of Swaziland or the latest episode
of Dr House, the channel will lose its charm of an encyclopedia channel
- and it will be void of people who otherwise helped newcomers. It will
also be void of admins, and in many cases, my only way to quickly
contact an admin was through that channel.

As it is worded now, the guideline is more permissive of off-topic.
However, you say: "It remains up to the channel operators to decide
their implementation." We all know that in this power play you
reinstated only the ops that agree with your take on what #wikipedia
should be. 

The only thing that this guideline has so far accomplished was to bring
*hostility* to the channel. 

Finally, let me repeat this: While I applaud your effort to take
initiative, why do you think you have legitimacy to deop people, make a
guideline without community input (whether the lack of community input
was your fault or not doesn't matter, there still wasn't any), and then
give ops to people who will follow it?

Dejan Čabrilo