On 7/22/08, Ken Arromdee arromdee@rahul.net wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jul 2008, Alec Conroy wrote:
Is it possible a desysopping could be as simple as "We think you could be more useful to the team as an editor than an administrator?"
Whatever you call it doesn't change what it is; they had permission before, and now don't.
Taking away privileges of someone because they "participated in conflict" when their participation consists of being attacked or of reporting attacks is wrong.
Well, many users tend to think the factionalism problem is something above and beyond mere victimhood. If you deny that premise-- if you look at the situation and see straightforward "abusers are abusing the abused", then of course you have a simple straightforward course of action-- ban the evildoers. In such a case your only problem is how to convince everyone else.
If the problem is more complicated than this, however, then the solution is far less straighforward. When starting this thread, George Herbert made a convincing case that there is a trend of dangerous factionalism. if that's the case, how would we go about mending the wounds?
I don't know.
Taking the problem seriously. That'd be a start.
Not procrastinating and hoping that, left alone, the problem will just go away.
Maybe getting the most-affected people off the front lines, into places where aren't responsible for inter-user conflict, but while still assuming good faith on their part.
And telling them that it's for their benefit is a transparent lie.
Mostly, I'd say it's for the benefit of the project. But ideally it would be for the benefit of both.
If I was a janitor and was fired because I reported being harassed by another janitor, and policy was to avoid complaints by firing all people involved in the complaint, I'd think that was wrong.
Granted. But I think a better metaphor would be "in addition to sincerely pursuing your each and every one of your harassent claims, we also think it would be best for all involved if you were transferred from janitorial services to A/V Services. It's a less hostile work environment and the pay is exactly the same. :)
Alec