Then, please, Charles, write and discuss what you see.
Marc
on 9/30/07 4:43 PM, charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com at charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
This is what WP:RFAR is for; or if that is excessive, the weekly summary at WP:POST in the Signpost. It happens that Arbitration takes in about 100 of the most serious disputes on enWP in a year.
To summarize from an Arbs point of view: our caseload is harder, because more of the disputes are entrenched. Many issues are related to conflict of interest, nationalism, politics or religion. Akl one, really, from our point of view: people abusing the facilities of the site, to skew the content. More of this, every day.
Other problem areas:
- High profile admins throwing their weight around: something of a constant
here, the names changing but the attitudes remaining. The half-life of such an admin is around nine months, I think. Attracts a disproportionate amount of attention. Our version of "canteen culture" meets office politics.
Deletion has its share of bottom-feeders.
The working environment of the average editor has probably not deteriorated
much socially, given that there were always people around on the site wasting your time. Technically things are much improved.
Jimbo's influence is much attenuated, for better or worse. The constitutional monarch retreats to the palace, or even his personal Marly.
On the other hand, the degree of external scrutiny of the site is vastly increased, and this has led to some jittery times. I recommend editing articles. Really, it all makes more sense if you look at the working enviroment in terms of the work.
Charles,
I can't speak for anyone but myself. So, from me, I say thank you for this. This is the type of concrete observation and input that will be needed to tackle the problems. We will not all agree on what the specific problems are, or what the order of priority should be for fixing them, but there must be a strong consensus that all is not right with the culture. And if - no, when - the powers that run this asylum ;-) decide to make a determined effort to examine the problems, I hope you will agree to be a part of that effort.
Marc