Earlier: "...There's a difference between people choosing to leave the project, and a project where the usual mode of leaving for experienced participants is an antagonistic conflict incident blowing up..."
Peter Blaise responds: I think the challenge is a total lack of "assume good faith" support from the Wikipedia community, especially admins, for anyone who tries to document what they see as something going wrong. Look at the experience of Judd Bagley and http://antisocialmedia.net/ - what we find is that anyone trying to identify problems gets labeled as "anti the project" and gets banned. That's my experience. Now, if I too were to document my experience, I'm confident that I'd get banned, too.
We seem to have choices, don't we:
- Stay, or Go ("on" or "off" energy)
- (try to) Add, or Subtract ("plus" or "minus" energy)
... and any dynamic blend of those. I WANT to stay and contribute. I'm frustrated by those who stay and delete. I'd prefer that anyone who has a "problem" with my contributions put their energies into making them better, rather than "merely" deleting and banning (for what? to hurry through their to-do-list quicker?).
Earlier: "... is anyone paying attention?..."
Peter Blaise responds: Yes, but not in the way we'd probably like:
FROM: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/12/06/wikipedia_and_overstock/ "...We aren't democratic...The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn't be writing..."
Let me look up "idiots shouldn't be writing" rule at Wikipedia ...
Earlier: "...In the case of our admins, there are so many pressures now..."
Peter Blaise responds: Not really. All anyone can do is one thing at a time, paying full attention to that one thing. In one sense, the "resignation" is the admin's way of saying that, for them, being an admin has dropped to #2 or lower on their to-do list. That's all. Is it their own "fault", or is it the "fault" of the Wikipedia so-called "community"? It hardly matters, as they are the same, essentially.