[Foundation-l] "antisocial production" & pt:wiki policies

[Mark Williamson]

Behavior on many projects IS outrageous; when someone complains the
response is almost universally that the foundation doesn't get
involved in local project business.

Mark

skype: node.ue



On Mon, Jun 29, 2009 at 11:44 PM, Ray Saintonge<saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
> Virgilio A. P. Machado wrote:
>> Marc, you comment is not very optimistic, but it was a great
>> incentive to do what I announced above. Hopefully others will be more
>> encouraged to voice their ideas about other matters, knowing they'll
>> find a friendly hear and some useful and very welcome feedback.
>>
>
> Marc and I just happen to come from a generation of grumpy old men who
> have never had enough good sense to abandon our principles.  If you do
> that long enough the optimism can suffer until you can pull yourself off
> the carpet and try again.
>> I'm glad to find Nathan in a better mood this time :-). Of course
>> language is a problem. This is indeed a very interesting problem that
>> I hope has a solution in the international wikipedian community. That
>> is also an obstacle to getting on greater detail in this list since
>> most of its members would not be able to verify and cross check that
>> information.
>>
>> The Foundation can't afford to let a Wikipedia on some obscure
>> language (that is not the case of Portuguese) to run wild and be run
>> by some mob. At some time a flag will go up. What then? I could offer
>> some suggestions, but I was hoping that you all would come up with
>> some useful and tested procedures.
>>
>
> It's unrealistic to expect those who do not speak your language to solve
> the problems.  Just because the anglophones happen to be hanging from
> the top of the Tower of Babel does not imply that they have any greater
> expertise.  I am willing to concede that the behaviour on some obscure
> language projects is nothing short of outrageous.  How do you determine
> what the Foundation can or can't afford? Being able to deal with the
> problems requires for the community to have a critical membership mass.
> The Foundation can't demand other solutions without compromising NPOV
> and individual responsibility.  If there are specific problems in a
> project, and nobody knows about them, nothing can be done.
>> I'm afraid to have to admit that the lack of interest and advice that
>> I got, so far, covers both list and off-list. I wish that would
>> change, again not only for the present case, but what kind of message
>> is this sending to others? How sure can we all be that there aren't
>> or there would not be other cases in the future?
>>
>
> The lack of interest is no surprise.  Why would anyone with an already
> full plate of problems want to take on a new one?  You can never be sure
> that there will be no other cases in the future.
>> Quite frankly, I would rather be wrong (not a very palatable
>> prospect) but give others the assurance that their voices will be
>> heard, than letting them remember the story of this guy from
>> "somewhere" who blew the whistle and nobody cared.
> Preferring to be wrong is very altruistic in an environment where most
> are desperate to be right, and to win. You don't have to worry about
> them remembering that nobody cared when they never acknowledge that
> someone was blowing the whistle in the first place.
>
> Ec
>
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