on 3/6/07 8:25 AM, Jeff Raymond at jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
The problem isn't what we call them, it's what the worst of them do. We can't keep renaming things or trying to figure out a better way to identify people if it doesn't get to the root of the problem.
Seriously. This has probably been the worst 4-6 weeks I've seen on this site since I started contributing, both on a personal and a social level. I don't care to contribute anymore due to the culture, people are dropping the site left and right (admin Doug Bell is on a wikibreak now because of the Essjay situation (not that he's part of the solution), Doc glasgow's scaled back considerably following the Essjay/Peppers fiascos, Alkivar's gone, a number of lower level users are giving up, who knows who else that I DON'T know about). And why? Because whatever you want to call them can't do their simple jobs properly (and who cares if they volunteer or not - if you can't do it right, don't do it), it gets nasty when they get called out on it, WP:IAR is being embraced like never before, causing massive internal strife, and ArbCom's only called upon to do something about it when there's a wheel war, ignoring the other issues.
I'm not sure how much more can be taken. We're at a record level of contributing and of attention, and it feels like the damn project is imploding. It needs to be fixed, and it needs a massive cleansing, not some cosmetic "hey, let's change the names of who runs the site" nonsense.
A climate is the temperature of a culture. And, right now, neither one is fit for man nor beast. Survival here is going to require some significant changes; otherwise nothing will.
Marc Riddell