Folks,
I have just spent some time reviewing the List's archives for the past several months, and it is clear something is changing and not for the good. The dialogues have become more combative, argumentative and downright mean. The individual contributions have become more aggressive, intolerant, patronizing, bullying, insulting, and downright mean. There has been a steady decline in fairness, civility and just plain listening.
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are willing to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
What's going on?
Marc Riddell
"Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away." - Goethe (from where, I wonder?)
On 9/12/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are
willing
to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
That's humanity in general, nothing to do with this list.
Humanity or Inhumanity? ... a judgement call.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Mailing lists are mailing lists. They are where people go to argue, and hyperbole is expected. (or at least so it's been in my experience with dozens of these since the medium was invented.) Every organization needs one. Those whose sensibilities are bothered need not read. It is perfectly possible to work effectively on WP without paying any attention to this list.
On 9/12/07, Josh Gordon user.jpgordon@gmail.com wrote:
"Know thyself? If I knew myself, I'd run away." - Goethe (from where, I wonder?)
On 9/12/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are
willing
to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
That's humanity in general, nothing to do with this list.
Humanity or Inhumanity? ... a judgement call.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- --jpgordon ∇∆∇∆ _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 13/09/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are willing to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
That's humanity in general, nothing to do with this list.
Humanity or Inhumanity? ... a judgement call.
Is there a difference? It's like famous and infamous - they mean exactly the same thing, they just differ in connotations. ;)
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are
willing
to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
That's humanity in general, nothing to do with this list.
Humanity or Inhumanity? ... a judgement call.
Is there a difference? It's like famous and infamous - they mean exactly the same thing, they just differ in connotations. ;)
The word "humanity" has always been a misnomer. Man has been an animal throughout the ages, albeit one with cognitive "intelligence". Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they never profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most of us are.
--Anirudh
_______________________________________________
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they never profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most of us are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's the way things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature of a mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing behavior that it is - and do something about it?
Marc
On 13/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they never profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most of us are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's the way things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature of a mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing behavior that it is - and do something about it?
Photos on user pages? If you know what someone looks like, they seem more like a real person and less like some bits in a database. Obviously, some people would not want their picture on their user page, but for those that do, it might help. And improving relations between those might help improve relations with the others too.
on 9/13/07 8:54 AM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they never profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most of us are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's the way things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature of a mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing behavior that it is - and do something about it?
Photos on user pages? If you know what someone looks like, they seem more like a real person and less like some bits in a database. Obviously, some people would not want their picture on their user page, but for those that do, it might help. And improving relations between those might help improve relations with the others too.
This would be a step in the right direction, Thomas. However, I still place the responsibility for change on the abuser. Is a blind person more abusive to someone simply because they can't see them?
Marc
From: Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] What's going on? - Inquiry 2 Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:08:59 -0400
on 9/13/07 8:54 AM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they
never
profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most
of us
are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's
the way
things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature
of a
mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing
behavior
that it is - and do something about it?
Photos on user pages? If you know what someone looks like, they seem more like a real person and less like some bits in a database. Obviously, some people would not want their picture on their user page, but for those that do, it might help. And improving relations between those might help improve relations with the others too.
This would be a step in the right direction, Thomas. However, I still place the responsibility for change on the abuser. Is a blind person more abusive to someone simply because they can't see them?
Marc
I think this is a little touchy feel. The defining quality of humanity is reason. The extent to which some of our nationalists reject rationality is...depressing. I have little problems with spades being called spades, and trolls being labelled just that. In my rather crude way I don't see why those who mess up Wikipedia should not get what they merit.
Moreschi
_________________________________________________________________ Get Pimped! FREE emoticon packs from Windows Live - http://www.pimpmylive.co.uk
I think this is a little touchy feel. The defining quality of humanity is reason. The extent to which some of our nationalists reject rationality is...depressing. I have little problems with spades being called spades, and trolls being labelled just that. In my rather crude way I don't see why those who mess up Wikipedia should not get what they merit.
It's a touchy feely subject. Calling a spade a spade is all well and good, but it doesn't help stop it being a spade.
I think this is a little touchy feel. The defining quality of humanity is reason. The extent to which some of our nationalists reject rationality is...depressing. I have little problems with spades being called spades, and trolls being labelled just that. In my rather crude way I don't see why those who mess up Wikipedia should not get what they merit.
Moreschi
The problem is that people react to rational criticism emotionally. When someone is told their behavior is inadequate for their integration into a society, they naturally act emotionally. The emotionally intelligent use their negative emotions to take positive action. But, more often than not, individuals that do not want to face their own inadequacies turn outward, insisting that the fault lies in the source of the criticism and not themselves... which leads to flaming, etc.
I, for one, don't bother to read a thread once it is clear that emotion has gotten involved... nothing gets truly resolved once rational thought is abandoned. The question is how do you teach people to step away until they've calmed down and can approach things with a clear mind? Until that happens, the vitriol will continue.
Angela
on 9/13/07 9:19 AM, Christiano Moreschi at moreschiwikiman@hotmail.co.uk wrote:
From: Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] What's going on? - Inquiry 2 Date: Thu, 13 Sep 2007 09:08:59 -0400
on 9/13/07 8:54 AM, Thomas Dalton at thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they
never
profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most
of us
are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's
the way
things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature
of a
mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing
behavior
that it is - and do something about it?
Photos on user pages? If you know what someone looks like, they seem more like a real person and less like some bits in a database. Obviously, some people would not want their picture on their user page, but for those that do, it might help. And improving relations between those might help improve relations with the others too.
This would be a step in the right direction, Thomas. However, I still place the responsibility for change on the abuser. Is a blind person more abusive to someone simply because they can't see them?
Marc
I think this is a little touchy feel. The defining quality of humanity is reason. The extent to which some of our nationalists reject rationality is...depressing. I have little problems with spades being called spades, and trolls being labelled just that. In my rather crude way I don't see why those who mess up Wikipedia should not get what they merit.
Moreschi,
Reason is the defining quality of a human being. The defining quality of humanity is empathy.
And what's wrong with "touchy feel" :-). Seriously, you have described two of our greatest senses.
Also, can't you make your arguments without calling someone names?
Marc
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that. * The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about its mission and goals. There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become. Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it. * This list, which used to be an effective forum and regarded by Jimbo as being THE place to do business is now ineffectual. Jimbo used to be a regular here. Looking from the perspective of number of posts per month, his participation here is down 43% this year from last year. * Issues of scale are not being addressed. Analogous; Usenet newsgroups were useful when there was a small community per newsgroup. When it became thousands per newsgroup, they became useless. See "Dunbar's number" article. * Prior decisions on key points are being disregarded, despite lengthy debates leading to those decisions. Precedent is meaningless now. The community has lost its ability to move forward because all decisions are immediately obsolete and carry no relevance for tightly related circumstances. * General behavior on Wikipedia has led to a narrower definition of the typical Wikipedian. Wikignomes, for example, are no longer valued. * While we have a crossed 2,000,000 articles, one automated study showed that about 3% of our articles...just 60,000...have anything above a few sentences and a handful of references. I.e., vast swaths of Wikipedia are very far from being encyclopedic in content and structure.
I could go on for a *long* while about the ails of Wikipedia and all the various symptoms that show its imminent demise.
Of course, all of what I've said above will be disputed, and I'll be shown by massive writings that I'm insane, criminally wrong, etc. The arguments will continue ad nauseum. I do not care for rebuttals at this point. I just hope people read this and take it to heart. Yes, the end of Wikipedia is nigh. Yes, I'm the quack standing on a corner with a sandwich board on me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
On 13/09/2007, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
- The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about its mission and goals. There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become.
As far as I'm aware, the Foundation isn't in financial difficulties, so the fundraising must be sufficient. Just because Wikipedia is growing at a particular rate doesn't mean our costs are growing at that rate.
Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
I can think of two people that have left, one of which was only ever intended to be temporary. Perhaps my memory is at fault, but I don't remember any "droves".
- This list, which used to be an effective forum and regarded by Jimbo as being THE place to do business is now ineffectual. Jimbo used to be a regular here. Looking from the perspective of number of posts per month, his participation here is down 43% this year from last year.
- Issues of scale are not being addressed. Analogous; Usenet newsgroups were useful when there was a small community per newsgroup. When it became thousands per newsgroup, they became useless. See "Dunbar's number" article.
Both valid points.
- Prior decisions on key points are being disregarded, despite lengthy debates leading to those decisions. Precedent is meaningless now. The community has lost its ability to move forward because all decisions are immediately obsolete and carry no relevance for tightly related circumstances.
- General behavior on Wikipedia has led to a narrower definition of the typical Wikipedian. Wikignomes, for example, are no longer valued.
I disagree. Do you have any evidence to support those assertions?
- While we have a crossed 2,000,000 articles, one automated study showed that about 3% of our articles...just 60,000...have anything above a few sentences and a handful of references. I.e., vast swaths of Wikipedia are very far from being encyclopedic in content and structure.
That's far worse than I would have estimated. Do you have to details of that study? A link perhaps?
I could go on for a *long* while about the ails of Wikipedia and all the various symptoms that show its imminent demise.
Of course, all of what I've said above will be disputed, and I'll be shown by massive writings that I'm insane, criminally wrong, etc. The arguments will continue ad nauseum. I do not care for rebuttals at this point. I just hope people read this and take it to heart. Yes, the end of Wikipedia is nigh. Yes, I'm the quack standing on a corner with a sandwich board on me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
You're going to get rebuttals whether you like them or not. That's how rational discussion works. Refusing to listen to rebuttals is a symptom of religion, not rationality.
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
You're going to get rebuttals whether you like them or not. That's how rational discussion works. Refusing to listen to rebuttals is a symptom of religion, not rationality.
To clarify; I know the rebuttals would come. Without meaning to be harsh, I do not care. I'm not interested in debate on these points. I'm interested in planting seeds of thought; others can run with it and do their own investigation. The ad nauseum arguments we see on this list and on Wikipedia lead to nothing. Either my points are valid, or they are not. Remember, I'm just the quack with the sandwich board. Investigate for yourself. Draw your own conclusions.
On 14/09/2007, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
You're going to get rebuttals whether you like them or not. That's how rational discussion works. Refusing to listen to rebuttals is a symptom of religion, not rationality.
To clarify; I know the rebuttals would come. Without meaning to be harsh, I do not care. I'm not interested in debate on these points. I'm interested in planting seeds of thought; others can run with it and do their own investigation. The ad nauseum arguments we see on this list and on Wikipedia lead to nothing. Either my points are valid, or they are not. Remember, I'm just the quack with the sandwich board. Investigate for yourself. Draw your own conclusions. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Forgive me, but isn't that a huge part of the problem? We have so many willing to point out what's wrong, often in minute detail and colourful language, but we have a very small number of people who say "I have identified the problem. Now, what can we do to fix it? What can I do to fix it?"
On 13/09/2007, Riana wiki.riana@gmail.com wrote:
Forgive me, but isn't that a huge part of the problem? We have so many willing to point out what's wrong, often in minute detail and colourful language, but we have a very small number of people who say "I have identified the problem. Now, what can we do to fix it? What can I do to fix it?"
-- Riana
I suggested software changes to enable Marc's suggested changes in a thread entitled 'Mailman software'. Somehow, it devolved into a discussion of whether y'all should consider archiving any differently than you always have, but without much discussion of USENET history. : (
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-September/thread.html#805...
On 9/13/07, Riana wiki.riana@gmail.com wrote:
On 14/09/2007, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
You're going to get rebuttals whether you like them or not. That's how rational discussion works. Refusing to listen to rebuttals is a symptom of religion, not rationality.
To clarify; I know the rebuttals would come. Without meaning to be harsh, I do not care. I'm not interested in debate on these points. I'm interested in planting seeds of thought; others can run with it and do their own investigation. The ad nauseum arguments we see on this list and on Wikipedia lead to nothing. Either my points are valid, or they are not. Remember, I'm just the quack with the sandwich board. Investigate for yourself. Draw your own conclusions. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Forgive me, but isn't that a huge part of the problem? We have so many willing to point out what's wrong, often in minute detail and colourful language, but we have a very small number of people who say "I have identified the problem. Now, what can we do to fix it? What can I do to fix it?"
-- Riana
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Riana http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Riana _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
You're forgiven, and yes it is. Don't worry about "the shy is falling" complaints. Don't ask "How can I fix Wikipedia?" Ask: Where is an incivility that needs to be smoothed over? Where is a content dispture that needs to be resolved? Where is a point of view dispute that that needs to be resolved? Where is an article that needs writing? Where is a licensing issue that needs resolving? Where is an article that needs sourcing? Where is an XFD that needs closing? Where is an uncategorised page that needs a home? Where is a new user who needs help with policies and guidelines?
Ask enough of these questions and you needn't worry about the first, which you can't hope to answer anyhow.
WilyD
Riana wrote:
Forgive me, but isn't that a huge part of the problem? We have so many willing to point out what's wrong, often in minute detail and colourful language, but we have a very small number of people who say "I have identified the problem. Now, what can we do to fix it? What can I do to fix it?"
It's a valid point, but when an individual goes in that direction he has a great deal of inertia to overcome.
Ec
on 9/13/07 12:57 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Riana wrote:
Forgive me, but isn't that a huge part of the problem? We have so many willing to point out what's wrong, often in minute detail and colourful language, but we have a very small number of people who say "I have identified the problem. Now, what can we do to fix it? What can I do to fix it?"
It's a valid point, but when an individual goes in that direction he has a great deal of inertia to overcome.
You are exactly right, Ray. And right now I am trying to gather enough time and energy to do just that.
Marc
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WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
I do not care. I'm not interested in debate on these points. I'm interested in planting seeds of thought; others can run with it and do their own investigation. The ad nauseum arguments we see on this list and on Wikipedia lead to nothing. Either my points are valid, or they are not. Remember, I'm just the quack with the sandwich board. Investigate for yourself. Draw your own conclusions.
It's called "hit and run." We're supposed to be inspired by your brilliant comments, while acknowledging that there's absolutely nothing you can learn from us. We are to wait with bated breath for your droppings of wisdom, and never expect you to actually participate in society.
Right.
Tools / Message Filters...
- -- Sean Barrett | We must do something. sean@epoptic.com | This is something. | Therefore, we must do it!
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
I can think of two people that have left, one of which was only ever intended to be temporary. Perhaps my memory is at fault, but I don't remember any "droves".
Angela, Brad, Carolyn, Danny...
On 13/09/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
I can think of two people that have left, one of which was only ever intended to be temporary. Perhaps my memory is at fault, but I don't remember any "droves".
Angela, Brad, Carolyn, Danny...
Angela was a board member, not an employee, and she'd served two years already - new blood on the board is a good thing. Brad only ever held an interim position, if memory serves. Carolyn, I don't remember the circumstances of. Danny's resignation basically boiled down to a personality conflict, as far as I can tell (I don't believe he ever actually gave his reasons). Danny was a one-off, I don't think you can draw any conclusions from his resignation.
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
I can think of two people that have left, one of which was only ever intended to be temporary. Perhaps my memory is at fault, but I don't remember any "droves".
Angela, Brad, Carolyn, Danny...
Angela was a board member, not an employee, and she'd served two years already - new blood on the board is a good thing.
I didn't realize the comment was limited to employees, although I did leave out the departures from the volunteers. That said, Angela says she didn't "leave", and I guess she didn't, she resigned from the board.
Brad only ever held an interim position, if memory serves.
He was general council too.
Carolyn, I don't remember the circumstances of.
The resolution presumably regarding her departure was sealed.
Danny's resignation basically boiled down to a personality conflict, as far as I can tell (I don't believe he ever actually gave his reasons).
None of the four really gave their reasons. Danny haw made public accusations of wrongdoing against board members, though.
Danny was a one-off, I don't think you can draw any conclusions from his resignation.
I didn't draw any conclusions, but it did provide more evidence that some of the problems I thought were happening were happening.
On 13/09/2007, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Brad only ever held an interim position, if memory serves.
Brad was a permanent employee who also happened to hold a second, temporary, role.
On 13/09/2007, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
Brad only ever held an interim position, if memory serves.
Brad was a permanent employee who also happened to hold a second, temporary, role.
His position as legal counsel was permanent? Ok.
On 9/13/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I can think of two people that have left, one of which was only ever intended to be temporary. Perhaps my memory is at fault, but I don't remember any "droves".
Angela, Brad, Carolyn, Danny...
I didn't leave. I just didn't want to be on the board while/because Brad was ED, along with a dozen other reasons for not being on the board anymore. However, I've been on the Advisory Board since its creation in January.
Angela
On 9/13/07, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I can think of two people that have left, one of which was only ever intended to be temporary. Perhaps my memory is at fault, but I don't remember any "droves".
Angela, Brad, Carolyn, Danny...
I didn't leave. I just didn't want to be on the board while/because Brad was ED, along with a dozen other reasons for not being on the board anymore. However, I've been on the Advisory Board since its creation in January.
What was your problem with Brad?
On 13/09/2007, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
I could go on for a *long* while about the ails of Wikipedia and all the various symptoms that show its imminent demise.
Of course, all of what I've said above will be disputed, and I'll be shown by massive writings that I'm insane, criminally wrong, etc. The arguments will continue ad nauseum. I do not care for rebuttals at this point. I just hope people read this and take it to heart. Yes, the end of Wikipedia is nigh. Yes, I'm the quack standing on a corner with a sandwich board on me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I'm somewhat sympathetic to your viewpoint, but I'm trying not to be pessimistic and I'm still hoping for a change in the way Wikipedia operates such that it gets over some of the issues it faces. I'm not entirely convinced the original and current ideologies (not in fact even set in stone, reflecting the modus operandi, or written down accurately) are entirely sound. As a volunteer contributor, I'm still holding back on my earlier heavy levels of involvement until I see some evidence that it's a less exasperating environment in which to collaborate on an encyclopaedia. Collaborating on an encyclopaedia was and should be fun, and a worthwhile endeavour and use of one's free time. At present however, I can't justify putting that effort into Wikipedia.
Zoney
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WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
I remember a meme from a couple decades ago: "Death of USENET imminent! [Film|MPG|claymation] at 11!"
Nice to see that the doomsayers are still thriving.
- -- Sean Barrett | We must do something. sean@epoptic.com | This is something. | Therefore, we must do it!
on 9/13/07 9:59 AM, WikipediaEditor Durin at wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
- The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about
its mission and goals. There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become. Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
- This list, which used to be an effective forum and regarded by Jimbo
as being THE place to do business is now ineffectual. Jimbo used to be a regular here. Looking from the perspective of number of posts per month, his participation here is down 43% this year from last year.
- Issues of scale are not being addressed. Analogous; Usenet newsgroups
were useful when there was a small community per newsgroup. When it became thousands per newsgroup, they became useless. See "Dunbar's number" article.
- Prior decisions on key points are being disregarded, despite lengthy
debates leading to those decisions. Precedent is meaningless now. The community has lost its ability to move forward because all decisions are immediately obsolete and carry no relevance for tightly related circumstances.
- General behavior on Wikipedia has led to a narrower definition of the
typical Wikipedian. Wikignomes, for example, are no longer valued.
- While we have a crossed 2,000,000 articles, one automated study
showed that about 3% of our articles...just 60,000...have anything above a few sentences and a handful of references. I.e., vast swaths of Wikipedia are very far from being encyclopedic in content and structure.
I could go on for a *long* while about the ails of Wikipedia and all the various symptoms that show its imminent demise.
Of course, all of what I've said above will be disputed, and I'll be shown by massive writings that I'm insane, criminally wrong, etc. The arguments will continue ad nauseum. I do not care for rebuttals at this point. I just hope people read this and take it to heart. Yes, the end of Wikipedia is nigh. Yes, I'm the quack standing on a corner with a sandwich board on me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
This post was a wild ride, Durin; but one well worth taking. Please hang in there with the Project. My voice, added to your voice, added to... soon becomes a sound too loud to ignore. If we become enough of a pain in the ass, they will eventually have to take a look at what they are sitting on ;-).
Marc Riddell
On 9/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
- The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about its mission and goals. There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become. Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
- This list, which used to be an effective forum and regarded by Jimbo as being THE place to do business is now ineffectual. Jimbo used to be a regular here. Looking from the perspective of number of posts per month, his participation here is down 43% this year from last year.
- Issues of scale are not being addressed. Analogous; Usenet newsgroups were useful when there was a small community per newsgroup. When it became thousands per newsgroup, they became useless. See "Dunbar's number" article.
- Prior decisions on key points are being disregarded, despite lengthy debates leading to those decisions. Precedent is meaningless now. The community has lost its ability to move forward because all decisions are immediately obsolete and carry no relevance for tightly related circumstances.
- General behavior on Wikipedia has led to a narrower definition of the typical Wikipedian. Wikignomes, for example, are no longer valued.
- While we have a crossed 2,000,000 articles, one automated study showed that about 3% of our articles...just 60,000...have anything above a few sentences and a handful of references. I.e., vast swaths of Wikipedia are very far from being encyclopedic in content and structure.
I could go on for a *long* while about the ails of Wikipedia and all the various symptoms that show its imminent demise.
Of course, all of what I've said above will be disputed, and I'll be shown by massive writings that I'm insane, criminally wrong, etc. The arguments will continue ad nauseum. I do not care for rebuttals at this point. I just hope people read this and take it to heart. Yes, the end of Wikipedia is nigh. Yes, I'm the quack standing on a corner with a sandwich board on me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I still find it unfortunate that (from what I have seen) you have reacted this negatively to the shift in consensus position on fair use of non-free images.
I think your personal experience has come to illustrate a rather negative long-term trend, though, the editor / admin burnout problem.
It would be easy for me to run down your itemized list and rebut a bunch; instead, I'll just note that growing pains are real, Wikipedia is not the same as it once was (at any level), and that some aspects of this are unfortunate at the same time as others are exhilirating.
Regarding the burnout problem; I am beginning to think that the fundamental problem is with the personality of the people who make good editors and admins. We are the types of people who, while basically functional in normal society, also can get very focused and obsessed on particular points.
I spent my late teens and early 20s figuring out how to unfocus and acknowledge when I had worked myself into a mental corner on an issue or problem. A majority of my talented friends and good coworkers haven't worked that out, yet, and I think that it's common on Wikipedia. Being able to identify it in yourself, and listen when others are trying to point it out to you, is a prerequisite to dealing with a situation by de-escalating, de-stressing, letting go and letting someone else handle it for a while. Those skills are the only way for people like us to keep focused on a project or issue for long periods of time. If we don't have them, we tend eventually to get locked in to some issue or problem we cannot personally actually solve, and it destroys our ability to keep working on the project or problem.
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
- The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about its mission and goals. There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become. Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
- This list, which used to be an effective forum and regarded by Jimbo as being THE place to do business is now ineffectual. Jimbo used to be a regular here. Looking from the perspective of number of posts per month, his participation here is down 43% this year from last year.
- Issues of scale are not being addressed. Analogous; Usenet newsgroups were useful when there was a small community per newsgroup. When it became thousands per newsgroup, they became useless. See "Dunbar's number" article.
- Prior decisions on key points are being disregarded, despite lengthy debates leading to those decisions. Precedent is meaningless now. The community has lost its ability to move forward because all decisions are immediately obsolete and carry no relevance for tightly related circumstances.
- General behavior on Wikipedia has led to a narrower definition of the typical Wikipedian. Wikignomes, for example, are no longer valued.
- While we have a crossed 2,000,000 articles, one automated study showed that about 3% of our articles...just 60,000...have anything above a few sentences and a handful of references. I.e., vast swaths of Wikipedia are very far from being encyclopedic in content and structure.
I could go on for a *long* while about the ails of Wikipedia and all the various symptoms that show its imminent demise.
Of course, all of what I've said above will be disputed, and I'll be shown by massive writings that I'm insane, criminally wrong, etc. The arguments will continue ad nauseum. I do not care for rebuttals at this point. I just hope people read this and take it to heart. Yes, the end of Wikipedia is nigh. Yes, I'm the quack standing on a corner with a sandwich board on me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
I still find it unfortunate that (from what I have seen) you have reacted this negatively to the shift in consensus position on fair use of non-free images.
I think your personal experience has come to illustrate a rather negative long-term trend, though, the editor / admin burnout problem.
It would be easy for me to run down your itemized list and rebut a bunch; instead, I'll just note that growing pains are real, Wikipedia is not the same as it once was (at any level), and that some aspects of this are unfortunate at the same time as others are exhilirating.
Regarding the burnout problem; I am beginning to think that the fundamental problem is with the personality of the people who make good editors and admins. We are the types of people who, while basically functional in normal society, also can get very focused and obsessed on particular points.
I spent my late teens and early 20s figuring out how to unfocus and acknowledge when I had worked myself into a mental corner on an issue or problem. A majority of my talented friends and good coworkers haven't worked that out, yet, and I think that it's common on Wikipedia. Being able to identify it in yourself, and listen when others are trying to point it out to you, is a prerequisite to dealing with a situation by de-escalating, de-stressing, letting go and letting someone else handle it for a while. Those skills are the only way for people like us to keep focused on a project or issue for long periods of time. If we don't have them, we tend eventually to get locked in to some issue or problem we cannot personally actually solve, and it destroys our ability to keep working on the project or problem.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
People need to learn how to not push themselves past their limits - if you're getting stressed, take a break. If the work is too much for you, let someone else do it. Making an encyclopaedia is supposed to be fun and fufilling - when it's not, take a break.
(Mind you, I got a pair of opposes on my RFA for taking 5 days off when I became stressed in a conflict, so don't do that until you've got your admin bit. ;))
On a more personal note, I've put a picture of myself on my userpage given George's preference. I hope everyone now thinks of me as a human being.
Cheers, WilyD
On 13/09/2007, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Regarding the burnout problem; I am beginning to think that the fundamental problem is with the personality of the people who make good editors and admins. We are the types of people who, while basically functional in normal society, also can get very focused and obsessed on particular points.
There's also the participation cycle. Elonka Dunin (User:Elonka) has done some work on Wikipedia as MMORPG. The typical participation time in an MMORPG is six to eighteen months. When she said this, I'd already noticed myself that some people I thought were great editors or admins would burn out and discover real life after eighteen months or so ... so, to be an old-timer on Wikipedia, just stick around for two years.
I find bouncing from job to job keeps things fresher. Also, remember to write articles. I haven't had an article deleted lately :-)
- d.
On 9/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Regarding the burnout problem; I am beginning to think that the fundamental problem is with the personality of the people who make good editors and admins. We are the types of people who, while basically functional in normal society, also can get very focused and obsessed on particular points.
There's also the participation cycle. Elonka Dunin (User:Elonka) has done some work on Wikipedia as MMORPG. The typical participation time in an MMORPG is six to eighteen months. When she said this, I'd already noticed myself that some people I thought were great editors or admins would burn out and discover real life after eighteen months or so ... so, to be an old-timer on Wikipedia, just stick around for two years.
I find bouncing from job to job keeps things fresher. Also, remember to write articles. I haven't had an article deleted lately :-)
I'm curious about Elonka's work now...
The time limits sound familiar from other online venues I've worked with in the past.
I strongly second the "bouncing from job to job" part. I've been doing RC patrol for the last few weeks, and it's time to stop. That one has proven pretty exhausting.
On 13/09/2007, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
There's also the participation cycle. Elonka Dunin (User:Elonka) has done some work on Wikipedia as MMORPG. The typical participation time in an MMORPG is six to eighteen months. When she said this, I'd already noticed myself that some people I thought were great editors or admins would burn out and discover real life after eighteen months or so ... so, to be an old-timer on Wikipedia, just stick around for two years.
I'm curious about Elonka's work now... The time limits sound familiar from other online venues I've worked with in the past.
Dunno if she's got the slides or talk up anywhere. Elonka? (cc'd)
- d.
On 9/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
- The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about
its mission and goals. There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become. Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
- This list, which used to be an effective forum and regarded by Jimbo
as being THE place to do business is now ineffectual. Jimbo used to be a regular here. Looking from the perspective of number of posts per month, his participation here is down 43% this year from last year.
- Issues of scale are not being addressed. Analogous; Usenet newsgroups
were useful when there was a small community per newsgroup. When it became thousands per newsgroup, they became useless. See "Dunbar's number" article.
- Prior decisions on key points are being disregarded, despite lengthy
debates leading to those decisions. Precedent is meaningless now. The community has lost its ability to move forward because all decisions are immediately obsolete and carry no relevance for tightly related circumstances.
- General behavior on Wikipedia has led to a narrower definition of the
typical Wikipedian. Wikignomes, for example, are no longer valued.
- While we have a crossed 2,000,000 articles, one automated study
showed that about 3% of our articles...just 60,000...have anything above a few sentences and a handful of references. I.e., vast swaths of Wikipedia are very far from being encyclopedic in content and structure.
I could go on for a *long* while about the ails of Wikipedia and all the various symptoms that show its imminent demise.
Of course, all of what I've said above will be disputed, and I'll be shown by massive writings that I'm insane, criminally wrong, etc. The arguments will continue ad nauseum. I do not care for rebuttals at this point. I just hope people read this and take it to heart. Yes, the end of Wikipedia is nigh. Yes, I'm the quack standing on a corner with a sandwich board on me. Don't say I didn't warn you.
on 9/13/07 4:10 PM, George Herbert at george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I still find it unfortunate that (from what I have seen) you have reacted this negatively to the shift in consensus position on fair use of non-free images.
I think your personal experience has come to illustrate a rather negative long-term trend, though, the editor / admin burnout problem.
It would be easy for me to run down your itemized list and rebut a bunch; instead, I'll just note that growing pains are real, Wikipedia is not the same as it once was (at any level), and that some aspects of this are unfortunate at the same time as others are exhilirating.
Regarding the burnout problem; I am beginning to think that the fundamental problem is with the personality of the people who make good editors and admins. We are the types of people who, while basically functional in normal society, also can get very focused and obsessed on particular points.
I spent my late teens and early 20s figuring out how to unfocus and acknowledge when I had worked myself into a mental corner on an issue or problem. A majority of my talented friends and good coworkers haven't worked that out, yet, and I think that it's common on Wikipedia. Being able to identify it in yourself, and listen when others are trying to point it out to you, is a prerequisite to dealing with a situation by de-escalating, de-stressing, letting go and letting someone else handle it for a while. Those skills are the only way for people like us to keep focused on a project or issue for long periods of time. If we don't have them, we tend eventually to get locked in to some issue or problem we cannot personally actually solve, and it destroys our ability to keep working on the project or problem.
Pretty insightful stuff, George. Thank you.
Marc
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I still find it unfortunate that (from what I have seen) you have reacted this negatively to the shift in consensus position on fair use of non-free images.
I think you fail to understand that consensus can not override that Wikipedia is not a fair use encyclopedia. It is a free content encyclopedia. I'm sorry you do not seem to understand this.
I think your personal experience has come to illustrate a rather
negative long-term trend, though, the editor / admin burnout problem.
And I think you're attempting to trivialize my comments as those coming from an editor who is burned out. I neither appreciate the attempt nor agree that it is correct. I thank you for your input, but you are quite incorrect.
On 9/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
I still find it unfortunate that (from what I have seen) you have reacted this negatively to the shift in consensus position on fair use of non-free images.
I think you fail to understand that consensus can not override that Wikipedia is not a fair use encyclopedia. It is a free content encyclopedia. I'm sorry you do not seem to understand this.
...well, I'm extremely sorry you feel this inflexibly about it. This issue seems to have been the last straw that drove you to separate yourself from the project, and other than this particular issue, your contributions are sorely missed.
I believe I speak for the new consensus, though, and that it extends up to at least informal agreement at all levels. This has been rather unfortunately divisive, but it is important.
I think your personal experience has come to illustrate a rather
negative long-term trend, though, the editor / admin burnout problem.
And I think you're attempting to trivialize my comments as those coming from an editor who is burned out. I neither appreciate the attempt nor agree that it is correct. I thank you for your input, but you are quite incorrect.
Your communications before, during, and after your departure match the type and tenor of the burned-out-senior-admin (which we have unfortunately had enough to recognize well, by now).
I'm sorry if you object to my generalization, but that's what it looked like to me.
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
I think you fail to understand that consensus can not override that Wikipedia is not a fair use encyclopedia. It is a free content encyclopedia. I'm sorry you do not seem to understand this.
...well, I'm extremely sorry you feel this inflexibly about it. This issue seems to have been the last straw that drove you to separate yourself from the project, and other than this particular issue, your contributions are sorely missed.
And again you've mis-characterized my stance.
I believe I speak for the new consensus, though, and that it extends
up to at least informal agreement at all levels. This has been rather unfortunately divisive, but it is important.
And fundamentally wrong. The "new consensus" you speak of would have Wikipedia not be a free content encyclopedia. If you don't want a free content encyclopedia, you are invited to apply for a job at Britannica. :)
That a consensus would agree that everyone should jump of a cliff doesn't make that consensus right. There are fundamental issues at stake here.
Your communications before, during, and after your departure match the
type and tenor of the burned-out-senior-admin (which we have unfortunately had enough to recognize well, by now).
Non-sequitur, since I've not been an admin for more than half a year. Whether it matches or not is irrelevant.
On 9/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
I think you fail to understand that consensus can not override that Wikipedia is not a fair use encyclopedia. It is a free content encyclopedia. I'm sorry you do not seem to understand this.
...well, I'm extremely sorry you feel this inflexibly about it. This issue seems to have been the last straw that drove you to separate yourself from the project, and other than this particular issue, your contributions are sorely missed.
And again you've mis-characterized my stance.
I believe I speak for the new consensus, though, and that it extends
up to at least informal agreement at all levels. This has been rather unfortunately divisive, but it is important.
And fundamentally wrong. The "new consensus" you speak of would have Wikipedia not be a free content encyclopedia. If you don't want a free content encyclopedia, you are invited to apply for a job at Britannica. :)
That a consensus would agree that everyone should jump of a cliff doesn't make that consensus right. There are fundamental issues at stake here.
This was clearly enough of a hot-button for you that you decided to largely leave over it.
Again, though, current consensus is that "the project" is not as absolutist free content oriented as you want it to be.
I do not expect that this is a closed issue. But there is a current consensus.
The opinion "You all have hijacked our project!" is a bit odd... it's almost completely against the idea of community values and decisionmaking. If the Board, en.wp admin, and en.wp editor communities communally agree that we're adopting one line rather than another one in the greater grey area of free and redistributable content, I don't see that as betraying a community core principle that we're going to be a freely available encyclopedia. We clearly still are, people clearly are still mirroring, and nobody has showed the slightest interest in threatening us over fair image use, much less suing.
It sounds like you should just fork Freedipeida off and be done with it. Good luck on your decisionmaking as to what to do about text quotes, if you do 8-)
Your communications before, during, and after your departure match the
type and tenor of the burned-out-senior-admin (which we have unfortunately had enough to recognize well, by now).
Non-sequitur, since I've not been an admin for more than half a year. Whether it matches or not is irrelevant.
You were a senior editor for longer than that. The admin bit is ... well, not trivial, but less important of a transition than "really active participation".
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
This was clearly enough of a hot-button for you that you decided to largely leave over it.
You continue to mischaracterize my opinions and intentions despite my insistence you are incorrect. I therefore choose to refuse to respond to you until you're willing to engage in rational discussion. Thank you.
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
This was clearly enough of a hot-button for you that you decided to largely leave over it.
You continue to mischaracterize my opinions and intentions despite my insistence you are incorrect. I therefore choose to refuse to respond to you until you're willing to engage in rational discussion. Thank you.
I am amused by the words "despite my insistence you are incorrect". Maybe George would like to hold a contrary insistence. I don't see how the ability to shout more stubbornly can be taken as evidence in support of your position.
Ec
Ray Saintonge wrote:
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
This was clearly enough of a hot-button for you that you decided to largely leave over it.
You continue to mischaracterize my opinions and intentions despite my insistence you are incorrect. I therefore choose to refuse to respond to you until you're willing to engage in rational discussion. Thank you.
I am amused by the words "despite my insistence you are incorrect". Maybe George would like to hold a contrary insistence. I don't see how the ability to shout more stubbornly can be taken as evidence in support of your position.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
C'mon Ray. Isn't Durin the sole authority on his own opinions and intentions?
-Rich
On 9/14/07, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge wrote:
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
On 9/13/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
This was clearly enough of a hot-button for you that you decided to largely leave over it.
You continue to mischaracterize my opinions and intentions despite my insistence you are incorrect. I therefore choose to refuse to respond to you until you're willing to engage in rational discussion. Thank you.
I am amused by the words "despite my insistence you are incorrect". Maybe George would like to hold a contrary insistence. I don't see how the ability to shout more stubbornly can be taken as evidence in support of your position.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
C'mon Ray. Isn't Durin the sole authority on his own opinions and intentions?
-Rich
Well, actually, no. People (myself clearly included) have a remarkable ability to either self-justify or delude ourselves as to how our internal understanding of events and our actions maps to what everyone else sees and percieves.
Listening in to what feedback others are giving about how they percieve our actions is an important safety fuse about whether our internalizations have gotten significantly out of sync with what we're presenting to everyone else.
All of that said, regarding Durin specifically, I call it like I see it, but I have no intention of bludgeoning him or the conversation with my interpretation of what it looked to me like he was doing. My apologies (to Durin and everyone else) if it's come across as rude. There's no benefit to the conversation or either of us in continuing that point now, I think.
On 9/13/07, WikipediaEditor Durin wikidurin@gmail.com wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
- The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about its mission and goals.
This is untrue.
There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become.
We're aware of fundraising. The Foundation isn't currently in financial difficulty; there is a fundraiser planned for later on in the year, and because we do actually care about it, have enlisted help and are starting organization, research, and campaign planning early; there are more long-term plans for future efforts.
Another symptom; massive turnover at the Foundation level. Though the words we've been hearing from the departing people have all been nice, any outside observer can see that an organization that loses people by the droves has serious problems, regardless of what face they attempt to put on it.
For what it's worth, I think the office is in a better state now than it has been in the past; the personnel are a better fit for the needs of the organization as they are now. Turnover doesn't come without its problems, but it's not always for the worse.
The rest are community issues which I can't speak on with any more knowledge than others here, but I recognize them: we have huge scaling issues, and many of the people who best know what the original community values were have burned out, have lost interest, or just aren't used to dealing with a sprawling metropolis rather than a small town.
I do see the list as being more argumentative than it has been in the past, more prone to hostile rather than healthy argument. Some speculation: people get tired of fighting the same battles fifty times over and get short and snappish, people leave when they are tired of rehashing, people don't know the people they're arguing with anymore, haven't worked with them and likely never will, and treat each other more poorly than if they knew they'd have to work together in the future. The list is too high-volume for people given to slow, thoughtful responses and who don't wish to spend all their time on the list to keep up; it's shifted more toward firing things off quickly, which leads to a more hasty and argumentative tone.
No one's disputing that there are problems... and often big, honking, obvious ones. But to characterize the issues as coming from indifference or apathy is not only a falsity but an insult to everyone putting in their effort toward them.
-Kat
On 9/13/07, Kat Walsh mindspillage@gmail.com wrote:
No one's disputing that there are problems... and often big, honking, obvious ones. But to characterize the issues as coming from indifference or apathy is not only a falsity but an insult to everyone putting in their effort toward them.
I'm seeing a spade and calling it for what it is. The evidence before me smacks of gross disorganization, organizational immaturity, failure to support long term goals, and an unwillingness to follow through on the Foundation's mission.
If the Foundation really, truly is committed to it's mission, then pray tell why is it en.wikipedia has in excess of 350,000 non-free images, and 20% of its articles contain non-free images? Any assertion that en.wikipedia is a free content encyclopedia is laughably absurd. That the Foundation has refused to step in and do anything about it, instead asserting that local projects need to control this, shows that the Foundation is unwilling to assume a leadership role in this fundamental area. Kat, you know this is a problem. The Foundation knows this is a problem. The reaction is hands off, to leave it alone. That IS indifference. I'm sorry, but it is what it is. And that is just _one_ of many areas in which the leadership is badly failing.
Pray tell, what happened to Carolyn Doran? I've asked on a number of fronts and been met with stone walls. The only thing those of us not in the Foundation have is that a resolution was passed http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#July_2007 on July 4th, and six days later Cary Bass removed her from the staff list. http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Current_staff&diff=2156... There's no copy available of the resolution, no explanation as to her departure, nothing. The Chief Operating Officer of a top ten web property vanishes, with no explanation of any kind?
Perhaps that the Foundation seems to disagree with you, Durin, implies that they disagree with you, not that they are failing at their job. Given that a large proportion of the editors and administrators of en.wikipedia also disagree with you on your interpretation of what Wikipedia's mission and purpose mean with regards to fair use images, perhaps this says that there is legitimate disagreement.
That you dismiss others' views so lightly is a problem, I feel.
Also, what is your position on textual fair use? Does Wikipedia's mission and purpose mean that we should excise all textual fair use as well? For that matter, trademarks are also a restriction on freedom; should we omit all mention of them too?
-Matt
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
On 9/13/07, Kat Walsh mindspillage@gmail.com wrote:
No one's disputing that there are problems... and often big, honking, obvious ones. But to characterize the issues as coming from indifference or apathy is not only a falsity but an insult to everyone putting in their effort toward them.
I'm seeing a spade and calling it for what it is. The evidence before me smacks of gross disorganization, organizational immaturity, failure to support long term goals, and an unwillingness to follow through on the Foundation's mission.
If the Foundation really, truly is committed to it's mission, then pray tell why is it en.wikipedia has in excess of 350,000 non-free images, and 20% of its articles contain non-free images? Any assertion that en.wikipedia is a free content encyclopedia is laughably absurd. That the Foundation has refused to step in and do anything about it, instead asserting that local projects need to control this, shows that the Foundation is unwilling to assume a leadership role in this fundamental area. Kat, you know this is a problem. The Foundation knows this is a problem. The reaction is hands off, to leave it alone. That IS indifference. I'm sorry, but it is what it is. And that is just _one_ of many areas in which the leadership is badly failing.
Pray tell, what happened to Carolyn Doran? I've asked on a number of fronts and been met with stone walls. The only thing those of us not in the Foundation have is that a resolution was passed http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#July_2007 on July 4th, and six days later Cary Bass removed her from the staff list. http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Current_staff&diff=2156... There's no copy available of the resolution, no explanation as to her departure, nothing. The Chief Operating Officer of a top ten web property vanishes, with no explanation of any kind?
As it ever occurred to you that Carolyn herself may have preferred so ?
If the issue disturbs you so much, I have a suggestion. Just give Carolyn a call. Afaik, she is still living in Florida. You may try to find her contact on internet, or white pages ? I think that when you want to know something, the best you can do is to ask directly the person. No ?
Best
Anthere
On 9/14/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
Pray tell, what happened to Carolyn Doran? I've asked on a number of fronts and been met with stone walls. The only thing those of us not in the Foundation have is that a resolution was passed http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolutions#July_2007 on July 4th, and six days later Cary Bass removed her from the staff list. http://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Current_staff&diff=2156... There's no copy available of the resolution, no explanation as to her departure, nothing. The Chief Operating Officer of a top ten web property vanishes, with no explanation of any kind?
As it ever occurred to you that Carolyn herself may have preferred so ?
If the issue disturbs you so much, I have a suggestion. Just give Carolyn a call. Afaik, she is still living in Florida. You may try to find her contact on internet, or white pages ? I think that when you want to know something, the best you can do is to ask directly the person. No ?
Please don't anyone actually do this.
On 9/14/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
As it ever occurred to you that Carolyn herself may have preferred so ?
Certainly.
However, for a major entity such as the Wikimedia Foundation to lose it's Chief Operating Officer without making a formal announcement smacks of organizational immaturity. That this was not done, and that this is being *defended* smacks of reasons that the Foundation wants to keep hidden.
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
On 9/14/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
As it ever occurred to you that Carolyn herself may have preferred so ?
Certainly.
However, for a major entity such as the Wikimedia Foundation to lose it's Chief Operating Officer without making a formal announcement smacks of organizational immaturity. That this was not done, and that this is being *defended* smacks of reasons that the Foundation wants to keep hidden.
Actually no. I think that on the contrary that case was an example of us maturing greatly.
Meanwhile, there is a confidentiality agreement with Carolyn to not further comment. Carolyn has the full right of talking to you, but we, as an organization, can not give details. In the past, there were some questions of how trustworthy the Foundation could be with confidential personal data. The Foundation was blamed because some private data were supposingly revealed and a couple of checkusers preferred to stop being checkusers when we requested them to simply give us proof of their real identity, because they feared that some spills could occur and their private data could become public.
I find quite amusing that now you are trying to blame us for precisely respecting confidentiality :-)
Regardless, I think you'll have to get used to the fact that as the organization is growing and maturing, all new hire and all new resignations will not be announced noisily, nor commented in all private details. You are perfectly free to try to guess who, why, when and what.
Ah, and... in case you wonder, Sue started a quest to look for a new COO this summer.
On related topics, I am myself starting a quest to look for a new treasurer since our current one (Michael) would like to move on. We may not do a BIG announcement about that. Before you start reflecting on bad hidden dark secrets, there is no secret. Michael has been on the board nearly 4 years. He does not have time any more for it. He is very busy with Wikia. He is part time working on west coast whilst his home is on the east coast. He indicated as early as end of 2006 that he would be ready to move out as soon as we found a good replacement. Recently, he urged me to start actively looking for a treasurer, as he feels we now have a staff in place allowing this change. No big deal. Just a person who want to move on :-)
Anthere
On 9/14/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
On 9/14/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
As it ever occurred to you that Carolyn herself may have preferred so ?
Certainly.
However, for a major entity such as the Wikimedia Foundation to lose it's Chief Operating Officer without making a formal announcement smacks of organizational immaturity. That this was not done, and that this is being *defended* smacks of reasons that the Foundation wants to keep hidden.
Actually no. I think that on the contrary that case was an example of us maturing greatly.
Meanwhile, there is a confidentiality agreement with Carolyn to not further comment. Carolyn has the full right of talking to you, but we, as an organization, can not give details. In the past, there were some questions of how trustworthy the Foundation could be with confidential personal data. The Foundation was blamed because some private data were supposingly revealed and a couple of checkusers preferred to stop being checkusers when we requested them to simply give us proof of their real identity, because they feared that some spills could occur and their private data could become public.
I find quite amusing that now you are trying to blame us for precisely respecting confidentiality :-)
Regardless, I think you'll have to get used to the fact that as the organization is growing and maturing, all new hire and all new resignations will not be announced noisily, nor commented in all private details. You are perfectly free to try to guess who, why, when and what.
Are you stating that Carolyn resigned, and that she was not fired or laid off, or is it a violation of the confidentiality agreement to answer that?
I would think the very least amount of transparency a public charity should have would be to clarify that point, and that the board should never sign a confidentiality agreement precluding even that.
I can't think of any public charity so grown and mature that it wouldn't issue a public statement regarding the departure of its COO - which leads me to believe that it's lack of growth and immaturity that has brought the WMF to neglect such a thing.
On 14/09/2007, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Are you stating that Carolyn resigned, and that she was not fired or laid off, or is it a violation of the confidentiality agreement to answer that?
I would think the very least amount of transparency a public charity should have would be to clarify that point, and that the board should never sign a confidentiality agreement precluding even that.
I can't think of any public charity so grown and mature that it wouldn't issue a public statement regarding the departure of its COO - which leads me to believe that it's lack of growth and immaturity that has brought the WMF to neglect such a thing.
Public charity? How many public charities are in the vengeance business?
In any case, if someone is fired, all the more reason not to disclose the reason for his or her departure. He or she is gone, end of story, no reason to try to ruin his or her future job prospects.
And of course, when an organisation gets really mature, it doesn't fire people, it simply transfers people to other departments.
Actually no. I think that on the contrary that case was an example of us maturing greatly.
Meanwhile, there is a confidentiality agreement with Carolyn to not further comment. Carolyn has the full right of talking to you, but we, as an organization, can not give details. In the past, there were some questions of how trustworthy the Foundation could be with confidential personal data. The Foundation was blamed because some private data were supposingly revealed and a couple of checkusers preferred to stop being checkusers when we requested them to simply give us proof of their real identity, because they feared that some spills could occur and their private data could become public.
I find quite amusing that now you are trying to blame us for precisely respecting confidentiality :-)
I've seen a few cases recently of people thinking that respecting privacy requires complete silence. It doesn't. If there is something you aren't telling people you should tell them that you aren't telling them and explain why not. If someone leaves for reasons you can't give then you announce "So-and-so is leaving for undisclosed reasons." or something.
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
On 9/14/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
As it ever occurred to you that Carolyn herself may have preferred so ?
Certainly.
However, for a major entity such as the Wikimedia Foundation to lose it's Chief Operating Officer without making a formal announcement smacks of organizational immaturity. That this was not done, and that this is being *defended* smacks of reasons that the Foundation wants to keep hidden.
Perhaps a simple announcement saying, "On mm-dd-yyyy Carolyn Doran ceased to be an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation for personal reasons," would have been enough to address your claims of "organizational immaturity". I'm sure that those in power will keep that in mind for the future. Some people would still not be satisfied unless they received enough information to write an article for "The National Enquirer" about the matter, but it would show even greater "organizational immaturity" to engage in breaches of the personal privacy of former employees.
There will be occasions when serious irregularities surround the departure of an employee, but delving further into such claims requires more substance than speculation based solely on the absence of information. Would you really have been satisfied by "personal reasons?"
Ec
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Perhaps a simple announcement saying, "On mm-dd-yyyy Carolyn Doran ceased to be an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation for personal reasons," would have been enough to address your claims of "organizational immaturity".
If that's what happened, then the WMF absolutely should have issued an announcement saying that.
The fact that the WMF apparently didn't issue such an announcement makes it look like that's not what happened.
Anthony wrote:
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Perhaps a simple announcement saying, "On mm-dd-yyyy Carolyn Doran ceased to be an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation for personal reasons," would have been enough to address your claims of "organizational immaturity".
If that's what happened, then the WMF absolutely should have issued an announcement saying that.
The fact that the WMF apparently didn't issue such an announcement makes it look like that's not what happened.
I'm disinclined to read anything more than necessary into the circumstances. Any of us who follow WMF activities will acknowledge that it is only recently climbing out of a period of organizational chaos. If making such announcements had fallen within Carolyn's normal employment duties there could very well have been confusion about who would make the announcement when she was the person affected.
The maxim of not attributing to malice what you can attribute to incompetence can have as much application to organizations as to individuals. I see no reason to suggest more sinister events.
The experience of this incident suggests that procedures should be developed regarding the announcement of hirings and departures of employees. It is good at any given time to know who is or is not working in key managerial or public roles, and the effective dates thereof. How much more can be said about the circumstances of someone's leaving will vary with the circumstances. At times a cryptic comment may be as much as can be said.
Take this theoretical example. If an employee is found pilfering small amounts from petty cash that person needs to go. A quiet departure may be best for everyone. There may not be enough evidence to support theft charges in criminal court, and simply participating may cost much more in employee wasted time than the amount that was stolen. Considering that some people have already complained that public knowledge of being banned from editing for a short period would irreparably damage their reputations, how much more damaging would internet gnatterings about petty theft be.
Ec
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Perhaps a simple announcement saying, "On mm-dd-yyyy Carolyn Doran ceased to be an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation for personal reasons," would have been enough to address your claims of "organizational immaturity".
If that's what happened, then the WMF absolutely should have issued an announcement saying that.
The fact that the WMF apparently didn't issue such an announcement makes it look like that's not what happened.
I'm disinclined to read anything more than necessary into the circumstances.
It seems to me that's exactly what you're doing, though. You just happen to be reading things a different way.
Any of us who follow WMF activities will acknowledge that it is only recently climbing out of a period of organizational chaos. If making such announcements had fallen within Carolyn's normal employment duties there could very well have been confusion about who would make the announcement when she was the person affected.
The maxim of not attributing to malice what you can attribute to incompetence can have as much application to organizations as to individuals. I see no reason to suggest more sinister events.
Personally, I see lots of things that suggest more sinister events. Many of them have been in private conversations, so I can understand why you might not have seen them.
The experience of this incident suggests that procedures should be developed regarding the announcement of hirings and departures of employees. It is good at any given time to know who is or is not working in key managerial or public roles, and the effective dates thereof. How much more can be said about the circumstances of someone's leaving will vary with the circumstances. At times a cryptic comment may be as much as can be said.
Absolutely.
Take this theoretical example. If an employee is found pilfering small amounts from petty cash that person needs to go. A quiet departure may be best for everyone. There may not be enough evidence to support theft charges in criminal court, and simply participating may cost much more in employee wasted time than the amount that was stolen. Considering that some people have already complained that public knowledge of being banned from editing for a short period would irreparably damage their reputations, how much more damaging would internet gnatterings about petty theft be.
What "people" have complained about this? AB is the only one I can think of that's come even close, and I'm not convinced that AB isn't just trolling us all anyway.
Stating that a high level employee of a public charity was fired for theft would be quite damaging. And without rock-solid evidence such a statement should probably leave out the "for theft" part. But stealing from a public charity is a quite serious offense.
Don't raise strawmen about irreparable damage. I don't personally think that public knowledge of being banned from editing for a short period would irreparably damage someone's reputation. I do think that indefinitely displaying the proceedings of a circus court on a site with the pagerank of Wikipedia damages reputations, though, and I think it's utterly unnecessary. Issuing a statement saying the XXX was fired for undisclosed reasons also damages reputations. But it's much more necessary, it doesn't have to be posted on Wikipedia, it could be kept in robots.txt for all I care, anyone caught stealing from a public charity deserves it way more than someone who merely pisses off a few Wikipedia admins, etc., etc. Do I really need to go on?
On 9/14/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
Stating that a high level employee of a public charity was fired for theft would be quite damaging. And without rock-solid evidence such a statement should probably leave out the "for theft" part. But stealing from a public charity is a quite serious offense.
Issuing a statement saying the XXX was fired for undisclosed reasons also damages reputations.
Which, by the way, is a good reason why XXX is probably willing to resign rather than be fired, so as to make the statement become "XXX has resigned for undisclosed reasons". And if you don't have rock-solid evidence, then getting XXX to resign saves you from a wrongful termination lawsuit, and saves you from having to pay unemployment benefits (which in Florida are extremely hard to get out of based on "fired for cause").
Anthony wrote:
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Any of us who follow WMF activities will acknowledge that it is only recently climbing out of a period of organizational chaos. If making such announcements had fallen within Carolyn's normal employment duties there could very well have been confusion about who would make the announcement when she was the person affected.
The maxim of not attributing to malice what you can attribute to incompetence can have as much application to organizations as to individuals. I see no reason to suggest more sinister events.
Personally, I see lots of things that suggest more sinister events. Many of them have been in private conversations, so I can understand why you might not have seen them.
I prefer basing my ideas on something stronger than conspiracy theories and gossip.
Take this theoretical example. If an employee is found pilfering small amounts from petty cash that person needs to go. A quiet departure may be best for everyone. There may not be enough evidence to support theft charges in criminal court, and simply participating may cost much more in employee wasted time than the amount that was stolen. Considering that some people have already complained that public knowledge of being banned from editing for a short period would irreparably damage their reputations, how much more damaging would internet gnatterings about petty theft be.
What "people" have complained about this?
I used the word "theoretical", though "hypothetical" would likely have been better. I'm sure that I could have suggested other misdemeanors to build the picture.
AB is the only one I can think of that's come even close, and I'm not convinced that AB isn't just trolling us all anyway.
=-O ?
Stating that a high level employee of a public charity was fired for theft would be quite damaging. And without rock-solid evidence such a statement should probably leave out the "for theft" part. But stealing from a public charity is a quite serious offense.
Theft can come in many forms; I just used a fairly obvious one for illustrative purposes. Whether the theft victim is a public charity does not alter the gravity of the offence.
In some companies employees who spend their work time editing an online encyclopedia instead of performing assigned duties could probably be fired for theft of the employer's time.
Don't raise strawmen about irreparable damage. I don't personally think that public knowledge of being banned from editing for a short period would irreparably damage someone's reputation. I do think that indefinitely displaying the proceedings of a circus court on a site with the pagerank of Wikipedia damages reputations, though, and I think it's utterly unnecessary. Issuing a statement saying the XXX was fired for undisclosed reasons also damages reputations. But it's much more necessary, it doesn't have to be posted on Wikipedia, it could be kept in robots.txt for all I care, anyone caught stealing from a public charity deserves it way more than someone who merely pisses off a few Wikipedia admins, etc., etc. Do I really need to go on?
Pissing off key people is the sort of thing that is usually discovered in the probationary period of a job. Sometimes people are just incompatible. When that's the case an agreed parting of the ways just avoids making each other miserable in the future. This may not be anybody's fault , and there is nothing significant enough in this to be made public.
Ec
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Any of us who follow WMF activities will acknowledge that it is only recently climbing out of a period of organizational chaos. If making such announcements had fallen within Carolyn's normal employment duties there could very well have been confusion about who would make the announcement when she was the person affected.
The maxim of not attributing to malice what you can attribute to incompetence can have as much application to organizations as to individuals. I see no reason to suggest more sinister events.
Personally, I see lots of things that suggest more sinister events. Many of them have been in private conversations, so I can understand why you might not have seen them.
I prefer basing my ideas on something stronger than conspiracy theories and gossip.
When a conspiracy is taking place, that's the right thing to do.
Take this theoretical example. If an employee is found pilfering small amounts from petty cash that person needs to go. A quiet departure may be best for everyone. There may not be enough evidence to support theft charges in criminal court, and simply participating may cost much more in employee wasted time than the amount that was stolen. Considering that some people have already complained that public knowledge of being banned from editing for a short period would irreparably damage their reputations, how much more damaging would internet gnatterings about petty theft be.
What "people" have complained about this?
I used the word "theoretical", though "hypothetical" would likely have been better. I'm sure that I could have suggested other misdemeanors to build the picture.
That's a non-answer. Your comment about "some people have already..." wasn't a theoretical or a hypothetical.
AB is the only one I can think of that's come even close, and I'm not convinced that AB isn't just trolling us all anyway.
=-O ?
Stating that a high level employee of a public charity was fired for theft would be quite damaging. And without rock-solid evidence such a statement should probably leave out the "for theft" part. But stealing from a public charity is a quite serious offense.
Theft can come in many forms; I just used a fairly obvious one for illustrative purposes. Whether the theft victim is a public charity does not alter the gravity of the offence.
Not in the eyes of the law, maybe, and not in your eyes maybe, but in my eyes it does.
In some companies employees who spend their work time editing an online encyclopedia instead of performing assigned duties could probably be fired for theft of the employer's time.
In some circumstances they could be fired (if, for instance, they were paid by the hour), but it wouldn't be for theft.
Don't raise strawmen about irreparable damage. I don't personally think that public knowledge of being banned from editing for a short period would irreparably damage someone's reputation. I do think that indefinitely displaying the proceedings of a circus court on a site with the pagerank of Wikipedia damages reputations, though, and I think it's utterly unnecessary. Issuing a statement saying the XXX was fired for undisclosed reasons also damages reputations. But it's much more necessary, it doesn't have to be posted on Wikipedia, it could be kept in robots.txt for all I care, anyone caught stealing from a public charity deserves it way more than someone who merely pisses off a few Wikipedia admins, etc., etc. Do I really need to go on?
Pissing off key people is the sort of thing that is usually discovered in the probationary period of a job. Sometimes people are just incompatible. When that's the case an agreed parting of the ways just avoids making each other miserable in the future. This may not be anybody's fault , and there is nothing significant enough in this to be made public.
So why do Mark and Fred and company insist on making my arb com public? An agreed parting of ways is all I want. Take my name off your stupid little website and I'll go away.
On 9/14/07, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
On 9/14/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Perhaps a simple announcement saying, "On mm-dd-yyyy Carolyn Doran ceased to be an employee of the Wikimedia Foundation for personal reasons," would have been enough to address your claims of "organizational immaturity".
If that's what happened, then the WMF absolutely should have issued an announcement saying that.
That's what happened. I argued on our communications mailing list that a basic announcement of this type would be helpful (also for people who were in touch with Carolyn and now needed someone else to follow up with), but the rough consensus was against. IMHO there's a middle ground between "going into detail on every staff issue" and "not informing the community about staff changes": quick updates (perhaps in a smaller "notes" section on the WMF website). We'll see, maybe next time.
There's also something to be said for the good ol' "Assume good faith". ;-)
Erik Moeller wrote:
That's what happened. I argued on our communications mailing list that a basic announcement of this type would be helpful (also for people who were in touch with Carolyn and now needed someone else to follow up with), but the rough consensus was against. IMHO there's a middle ground between "going into detail on every staff issue" and "not informing the community about staff changes": quick updates (perhaps in a smaller "notes" section on the WMF website). We'll see, maybe next time.
A "notes" section or something like that seems reasonable. It'd be nice if there were some place where brief updates on Foundation issues were put, where someone interested could check without it being necessary to give the undue weight of a whole Official Mailing List Announcement to them. Things other than personnel announcements could go there as well, like "Erik met with [organization X] this weekend to talk about future cooperation", etc. My university has a weekly email newsletter with those sorts of 1-line updates (including all personnel changes, even of lower-level staff), which seems to work moderately well.
-Mark
Delirium wrote:
Erik Moeller wrote:
That's what happened. I argued on our communications mailing list that a basic announcement of this type would be helpful (also for people who were in touch with Carolyn and now needed someone else to follow up with), but the rough consensus was against. IMHO there's a middle ground between "going into detail on every staff issue" and "not informing the community about staff changes": quick updates (perhaps in a smaller "notes" section on the WMF website). We'll see, maybe next time.
A "notes" section or something like that seems reasonable. It'd be nice if there were some place where brief updates on Foundation issues were put, where someone interested could check without it being necessary to give the undue weight of a whole Official Mailing List Announcement to them. Things other than personnel announcements could go there as well, like "Erik met with [organization X] this weekend to talk about future cooperation", etc. My university has a weekly email newsletter with those sorts of 1-line updates (including all personnel changes, even of lower-level staff), which seems to work moderately well.
-Mark
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Slightly different, but let me take the opportunity to remind two links
* http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Current_events * http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Messages
Ant
On 9/17/07, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
That's what happened. I argued on our communications mailing list that a basic announcement of this type would be helpful (also for people who were in touch with Carolyn and now needed someone else to follow up with), but the rough consensus was against. IMHO there's a middle ground between "going into detail on every staff issue" and "not informing the community about staff changes": quick updates (perhaps in a smaller "notes" section on the WMF website). We'll see, maybe next time.
One could say that Cary's removal of Carolyn from the [[wikimedia:Current staff]] page was the "smaller 'notes' section" that was wanted. The information of her leaving the Foundation was easily available, you just had to go and look for it.
There's also something to be said for the good ol' "Assume good faith". ;-)
-- Toward Peace, Love & Progress: Erik
DISCLAIMER: This message does not represent an official position of the Wikimedia Foundation or its Board of Trustees.
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WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
- The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about its mission and goals. There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become.
By the way... on the very topic of fundraising, would you care reading that post from Sabine, and reflecting on the fact YOU are complaining in length about the complete and utter inability of the Foundation to handle fundraising, and the fact people organizing fundraising on behalf of the Foundation are faced with an abysmal lack of responsiveness from the community members ?
I think we are all in the same pool, working toward the same goal, dedicated to the same values. Some of us are editors and try to do the best as editors. Some are rather helping on the software side and trying to develop the most useful tools, some are helping with the fundraising and trying to raise as much money as possible, without upsetting the community, some are working on the legal side, trying to make as much as possible sure that we avoid lawsuits or come out of them with the best possible outcome, some are working on making sure the accounts are audited, some are working to hunt the copyright violators, some are lobbying government to get the most favorable laws... in short, there are many of us, and we all try to make the best in an area we have chosen. When you see an area in trouble, yes you may speak about it, but the best you can do is 1) help if you can or 2) try to find other who can help if you can not 3) avoid discouraging those who are working in this area
Your email above achieve none of these three goals.
So my suggestion for you, so that you feel good at the end of this day, is to go read Sabine blog. Read all the things she is currently working on. Consider if you can help. If you can not, if you know someone who can help. Or at least, give an advice to her, gives a feedback, a warm word of support, a little wikilove. The more support she has, the more wonderfull our next fundraiser will be
Ant
Florence Devouard wrote:
WikipediaEditor Durin wrote:
The overarching problem here is that Wikipedia is collapsing. This list is just a symptom of that.
- The Foundation has become ineffective and no longer cares about its mission and goals. There's a number of symptoms resulting from this state. One such symptom is the abysmal state of fundraising. In hard numbers, the fundraising is better. In terms of per-capita analysis, absolutely terrible. In short, the importance, scale and complexity of Wikipedia has dramatically increased while fund raising has only slightly increased. It's not keeping up, and the more that it can't keep up the worse the problems will become.
By the way... on the very topic of fundraising, would you care reading that post from Sabine, and reflecting on the fact YOU are complaining in length about the complete and utter inability of the Foundation to handle fundraising, and the fact people organizing fundraising on behalf of the Foundation are faced with an abysmal lack of responsiveness from the community members ?
I think we are all in the same pool, working toward the same goal, dedicated to the same values. Some of us are editors and try to do the best as editors. Some are rather helping on the software side and trying to develop the most useful tools, some are helping with the fundraising and trying to raise as much money as possible, without upsetting the community, some are working on the legal side, trying to make as much as possible sure that we avoid lawsuits or come out of them with the best possible outcome, some are working on making sure the accounts are audited, some are working to hunt the copyright violators, some are lobbying government to get the most favorable laws... in short, there are many of us, and we all try to make the best in an area we have chosen. When you see an area in trouble, yes you may speak about it, but the best you can do is
- help if you can or
- try to find other who can help if you can not
- avoid discouraging those who are working in this area
Your email above achieve none of these three goals.
So my suggestion for you, so that you feel good at the end of this day, is to go read Sabine blog. Read all the things she is currently working on. Consider if you can help. If you can not, if you know someone who can help. Or at least, give an advice to her, gives a feedback, a warm word of support, a little wikilove. The more support she has, the more wonderfull our next fundraiser will be
Ant
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Weird. I sent a second mail immediately after this one, to add the link (that OF COURSE I forgot) and it does not show up....
Well, link again: http://sabinecretella.blogspot.com/2007/09/fundraiser-2007-responsiveness-of...
On 9/16/07, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
When you see an area in trouble, yes you may speak about it, but the best you can do is
- help if you can or
- try to find other who can help if you can not
- avoid discouraging those who are working in this area
Your email above achieve none of these three goals.
This dichotomy is astonishing. Yes, I may speak about shortcomings I see in the Foundation, but the best I can do does not include any thing about speaking about the Foundation's shortcomings.
All of us who have the best of intentions (and I assure you mine are in that vein) contribute in ways we think are beneficial. Complaining about the poor performance of the Foundation is one such way. We do not correct problems by ignoring them or by chastising our contributors by saying they are not doing their best when they raise issues with the Foundation's performance.
This would be a step in the right direction, Thomas. However, I still place the responsibility for change on the abuser. Is a blind person more abusive to someone simply because they can't see them?
To be honest, I don't know that many blind people, so I don't know. I would imagine not, though. However, a blind person can't see anyone, so they would be expected to treat people online in the same way they treat people in real life - hopefully civilly. For a seeing person, there is a difference between perception of real life people and perception of online people, and that causes a difference in behaviour. It's not acceptable, of course, but it is understandable.
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they never profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most of us are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's the way things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature of a mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing behavior that it is - and do something about it?
Photos on user pages? If you know what someone looks like, they seem more like a real person and less like some bits in a database. Obviously, some people would not want their picture on their user page, but for those that do, it might help. And improving relations between those might help improve relations with the others too.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Would people really be happier if there was a picture of me on my userpage? I'd be happy to add one if this is some sort of big deal.
WilyD
On 9/13/07, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they never profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most of us are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's the way things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature of a mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing behavior that it is - and do something about it?
Photos on user pages? If you know what someone looks like, they seem more like a real person and less like some bits in a database. Obviously, some people would not want their picture on their user page, but for those that do, it might help. And improving relations between those might help improve relations with the others too.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Would people really be happier if there was a picture of me on my userpage? I'd be happy to add one if this is some sort of big deal.
WilyD
Don't do it if you vandal-fight to any serious degree. I've got one up and had to semi-protect my talk page, though that may be the particular set of fake-rap-artist-4chan-prank nuts I've managed to provoke over the last couple of weeks.
Otherwise, I encourage it, personally.
On 13/09/2007, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
Don't do it if you vandal-fight to any serious degree. I've got one up and had to semi-protect my talk page, though that may be the particular set of fake-rap-artist-4chan-prank nuts I've managed to provoke over the last couple of weeks. Otherwise, I encourage it, personally.
A user page is your personal page for *project* purposes - the volunteer equivalent of a work intraweb page. (Except the world can see it, but anyway.)
I think the best thing to do with it is to use it as a way of introducing yourself to fellow project workers who may not know you yet - they see you editing, they look at your user page to get an idea about you. (This is what I look at others' user pages for and why I think they're a good thing.)
Others combine this with handy links they use a lot, i.e. they use their user page as a personal working portal page.
So there's no obligation to have any sort of user page, or to write anything on it at all - a lot of people (including admins) redirect their user page to their talk page. But I think it's worth keeping in mind that everything you say or do - or don't say or do - on your user page is part of how you present yourself to others on the project. Like real life, really.
- d.
On 9/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
... But I think it's worth keeping in mind that everything you say or do - or don't say or do - on your user page is part of how you present yourself to others on the project. Like real life, really.
Right. (and with the other stuff I deleted for space)
In my mind, a slow progression towards more admins and senior editors being fully publically identified is a good thing; it humanizes us, makes us more credible to the outside world, etc. Adding user page photos is a part of that.
On 13/09/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
A user page is your personal page for *project* purposes - the volunteer equivalent of a work intraweb page. (Except the world can see it, but anyway.)
I think the best thing to do with it is to use it as a way of introducing yourself to fellow project workers who may not know you yet - they see you editing, they look at your user page to get an idea about you. (This is what I look at others' user pages for and why I think they're a good thing.)
Others combine this with handy links they use a lot, i.e. they use their user page as a personal working portal page.
So there's no obligation to have any sort of user page, or to write anything on it at all - a lot of people (including admins) redirect their user page to their talk page. But I think it's worth keeping in mind that everything you say or do - or don't say or do - on your user page is part of how you present yourself to others on the project. Like real life, really.
- d.
A bit high-profile to be just 'how you present yourself to others on the project' - it will probably be the #1 Google hit for your name or pseudonym.
People keep going on and on about 'accountability'. Might some people be more inclined to reveal whatever personal info is enveloped by 'accountability' if the User namespace were hidden from Google and other search engines?
On 13/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
A bit high-profile to be just 'how you present yourself to others on the project' - it will probably be the #1 Google hit for your name or pseudonym.
My Wikipedia user page is for "David Gerard", with or without quotes, but these days pretty much anyone wondering who this guy is will be wanting to know because of Wikipedia-related activities anyway. So if you have someone pissed off at you for Wikipedia activity and your user page is the first hit ... um, they've already read it.
People keep going on and on about 'accountability'. Might some people be more inclined to reveal whatever personal info is enveloped by 'accountability' if the User namespace were hidden from Google and other search engines?
Possibly. But you know that the only way not to have something found that you put on the Internet is not to put it on the Internet.
- d.
On 13/09/2007, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Armed Blowfish diodontida.armata@googlemail.com wrote:
A bit high-profile to be just 'how you present yourself to others on the project' - it will probably be the #1 Google hit for your name or pseudonym.
My Wikipedia user page is for "David Gerard", with or without quotes, but these days pretty much anyone wondering who this guy is will be wanting to know because of Wikipedia-related activities anyway. So if you have someone pissed off at you for Wikipedia activity and your user page is the first hit ... um, they've already read it.
Some of us use our names and/or pseudonyms at places other than Wikipaedia.
People keep going on and on about 'accountability'. Might some people be more inclined to reveal whatever personal info is enveloped by 'accountability' if the User namespace were hidden from Google and other search engines?
Possibly.
And if they did, would that not please all the pro-accountability people? (Disclaimer: I am not one of the pro-accountability people.)
But you know that the only way not to have something found that you put on the Internet is not to put it on the Internet.
- d.
Even that does not always work. For example, someone can go digging through your records offline, and then place them online.
Also, Google rankings really do matter in terms of page hits.
Truth be told probably not. I ran for adminship at the beginning of summer, failed at 70 percent i believe, and there were a couple opposes because i had a photo of myself on my user page, which was decried as against WP:NOT myspace.
On 9/13/07, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they
never
profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most
of us
are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's the
way
things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature
of a
mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing behavior that it is - and do something about it?
Photos on user pages? If you know what someone looks like, they seem more like a real person and less like some bits in a database. Obviously, some people would not want their picture on their user page, but for those that do, it might help. And improving relations between those might help improve relations with the others too.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Would people really be happier if there was a picture of me on my userpage? I'd be happy to add one if this is some sort of big deal.
WilyD
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/13/07, Brock Weller brock.weller@gmail.com wrote:
Truth be told probably not. I ran for adminship at the beginning of summer, failed at 70 percent i believe, and there were a couple opposes because i had a photo of myself on my user page, which was decried as against WP:NOT myspace.
That makes me grumpy enough to do an essay. But today's a very busy day.
On 9/13/07, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they
never
profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most
of us
are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's the
way
things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature
of a
mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing behavior that it is - and do something about it?
Photos on user pages? If you know what someone looks like, they seem more like a real person and less like some bits in a database. Obviously, some people would not want their picture on their user page, but for those that do, it might help. And improving relations between those might help improve relations with the others too.
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Would people really be happier if there was a picture of me on my userpage? I'd be happy to add one if this is some sort of big deal.
WilyD
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- -Brock
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
On 9/13/07, Brock Weller brock.weller@gmail.com wrote:
Truth be told probably not. I ran for adminship at the beginning of summer, failed at 70 percent i believe, and there were a couple opposes because i had a photo of myself on my user page, which was decried as against WP:NOT myspace.
Sorry, too late. I'll take it off if I ever run for Bureaucrat.
WilyD
On 9/13/07, Brock Weller brock.weller@gmail.com wrote:
Truth be told probably not. I ran for adminship at the beginning of summer, failed at 70 percent i believe, and there were a couple opposes because i had a photo of myself on my user page, which was decried as against WP:NOT myspace.
More proof of the brokenness of RFA than anything else, I'd have thought.
-Matt
On 9/13/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 9/13/07 6:14 AM, Anirudh at anirudhsbh@gmail.com wrote:
Somehow, on Wikipedia, people tend to treat other users even worse, as if they never profess any kind of feelings like humans do. I am guilty of this, most of us are.
And do we accept this as a given? Do we excuse it by saying, "that's the way things are & always will be". And, as someone said, "that's the nature of a mailing list". Or, do we see it for the primitive, dehumanizing behavior that it is - and do something about it?
Marc
You always try to do something about it, no matter how many times the wrong side wins.
KP
On 9/12/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Folks,
I have just spent some time reviewing the List's archives for the past several months, and it is clear something is changing and not for the good. The dialogues have become more combative, argumentative and downright mean. The individual contributions have become more aggressive, intolerant, patronizing, bullying, insulting, and downright mean. There has been a steady decline in fairness, civility and just plain listening.
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are willing to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
What's going on?
Marc Riddell
Did you read through more than just the last few months? There's six years of archived lists; they make for pretty interesting if headache-inducing reading. I would be interested in your conclusions based on a year or three's worth of data. (Of course it's very time-consuming to read archives, I know!)
Most of what I've seen in the archives is that there are issues that come up periodically, with never much consensus or a slow shift in how the issues are argued; and issues that keep coming up but have a drift towards consensus until something gets done. It's also interesting to note the various groups of people that crop up, are very active on the lists for a few months or even years, then go away; versus the few hardy souls that are still posting and have been here since the beginning. Also interesting are the brilliant ideas/proposals that you see pop up once in a while that seem perfectly reasonable, but nothing ever happened with; occasionally an entirely different, newly enthusiastic person will come up with the same idea later. There's definitely a rhythm to what issues come up and how that I haven't really spent enough time with the archives to determine; but the lists seem to have been pretty argumentative since the beginning all in all, with presumably a steadily expanding readership, but perhaps not a proportional increase in posters at any one time.
-- phoebe
On 9/12/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/12/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Folks,
I have just spent some time reviewing the List's archives for the past several months, and it is clear something is changing and not for the good. The dialogues have become more combative, argumentative and downright mean. The individual contributions have become more aggressive, intolerant, patronizing, bullying, insulting, and downright mean. There has been a steady decline in fairness, civility and just plain listening.
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are willing to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
What's going on?
Marc Riddell
Did you read through more than just the last few months? There's six years of archived lists; they make for pretty interesting if headache-inducing reading. I would be interested in your conclusions based on a year or three's worth of data. (Of course it's very time-consuming to read archives, I know!)
Most of what I've seen in the archives is that there are issues that come up periodically, with never much consensus or a slow shift in how the issues are argued; and issues that keep coming up but have a drift towards consensus until something gets done. It's also interesting to note the various groups of people that crop up, are very active on the lists for a few months or even years, then go away; versus the few hardy souls that are still posting and have been here since the beginning. Also interesting are the brilliant ideas/proposals that you see pop up once in a while that seem perfectly reasonable, but nothing ever happened with; occasionally an entirely different, newly enthusiastic person will come up with the same idea later. There's definitely a rhythm to what issues come up and how that I haven't really spent enough time with the archives to determine; but the lists seem to have been pretty argumentative since the beginning all in all, with presumably a steadily expanding readership, but perhaps not a proportional increase in posters at any one time.
-- phoebe
Without having re-read the archives over that period of time (I've been on-list for about
On 9/12/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/12/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/12/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Folks,
I have just spent some time reviewing the List's archives for the past several months, and it is clear something is changing and not for the good. The dialogues have become more combative, argumentative and downright mean. The individual contributions have become more aggressive, intolerant, patronizing, bullying, insulting, and downright mean. There has been a steady decline in fairness, civility and just plain listening.
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are willing to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
What's going on?
Marc Riddell
Did you read through more than just the last few months? There's six years of archived lists; they make for pretty interesting if headache-inducing reading. I would be interested in your conclusions based on a year or three's worth of data. (Of course it's very time-consuming to read archives, I know!)
Most of what I've seen in the archives is that there are issues that come up periodically, with never much consensus or a slow shift in how the issues are argued; and issues that keep coming up but have a drift towards consensus until something gets done. It's also interesting to note the various groups of people that crop up, are very active on the lists for a few months or even years, then go away; versus the few hardy souls that are still posting and have been here since the beginning. Also interesting are the brilliant ideas/proposals that you see pop up once in a while that seem perfectly reasonable, but nothing ever happened with; occasionally an entirely different, newly enthusiastic person will come up with the same idea later. There's definitely a rhythm to what issues come up and how that I haven't really spent enough time with the archives to determine; but the lists seem to have been pretty argumentative since the beginning all in all, with presumably a steadily expanding readership, but perhaps not a proportional increase in posters at any one time.
-- phoebe
Without having re-read the archives over that period of time (I've been on-list for about
er. Sorry about that.
What I was trying to say, I've been on-list for about 16 months now, and have 20 years plus prior Internet experience. I think Marc is accurate insofar as the tone of the list in the last few months is different than it was in the year before that; it's not being used for as many serious high level discussions and is somewhat more grumpy.
I can't comment on the list before May 06, not having been here and not having read the archives.
What I was trying to say, I've been on-list for about 16 months now, and have 20 years plus prior Internet experience. I think Marc is accurate insofar as the tone of the list in the last few months is different than it was in the year before that; it's not being used for as many serious high level discussions and is somewhat more grumpy.
Not being used for as many serious high level discussions... interesting point. When was foundation-l started? Have all the serious discussions moved there leaving just the rants here?
On 13/09/2007, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
What I was trying to say, I've been on-list for about 16 months now, and have 20 years plus prior Internet experience. I think Marc is accurate insofar as the tone of the list in the last few months is different than it was in the year before that; it's not being used for as many serious high level discussions and is somewhat more grumpy.
Not being used for as many serious high level discussions... interesting point. When was foundation-l started? Have all the serious discussions moved there leaving just the rants here?
No, it's at least as ranty ;-)
wikien-l is an official place to talk English Wikipedia business, as foundation-l is an official place to talk Foundation business. In both cases, they're pretty much open to all, so they both frequently descend into spiraling threads of death which are best ignored.
- d.
On 9/13/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 13/09/2007, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
What I was trying to say, I've been on-list for about 16 months now, and have 20 years plus prior Internet experience. I think Marc is accurate insofar as the tone of the list in the last few months is different than it was in the year before that; it's not being used for as many serious high level discussions and is somewhat more grumpy.
Not being used for as many serious high level discussions... interesting point. When was foundation-l started? Have all the serious discussions moved there leaving just the rants here?
No, it's at least as ranty ;-)
wikien-l is an official place to talk English Wikipedia business, as foundation-l is an official place to talk Foundation business. In both cases, they're pretty much open to all, so they both frequently descend into spiraling threads of death which are best ignored.
In my opinion; there's less strife by far on foundation-l, along with less people.
Still some strong opinions, but more people seem offended by goings-on at English Wikipedia than at the foundation level.
On 13/09/2007, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
In my opinion; there's less strife by far on foundation-l, along with less people.
Yeah. If it's a language discussion or if particular users join a thread, the thread is dead and can be ignored.
Still some strong opinions, but more people seem offended by goings-on at English Wikipedia than at the foundation level.
foundation-l isn't a channel of last resort for banned users, so at least there isn't that dynamic.
- d.
Thomas Dalton wrote:
What I was trying to say, I've been on-list for about 16 months now, and have 20 years plus prior Internet experience. I think Marc is accurate insofar as the tone of the list in the last few months is different than it was in the year before that; it's not being used for as many serious high level discussions and is somewhat more grumpy.
Not being used for as many serious high level discussions... interesting point. When was foundation-l started? Have all the serious discussions moved there leaving just the rants here?
Why would you think that the Foundation list is exempt from rants?
Ec
On 13/09/2007, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Thomas Dalton wrote:
What I was trying to say, I've been on-list for about 16 months now, and have 20 years plus prior Internet experience. I think Marc is accurate insofar as the tone of the list in the last few months is different than it was in the year before that; it's not being used for as many serious high level discussions and is somewhat more grumpy.
Not being used for as many serious high level discussions... interesting point. When was foundation-l started? Have all the serious discussions moved there leaving just the rants here?
Why would you think that the Foundation list is exempt from rants?
It's not, but it does get serious discussion as well. This list ends up being mostly rants.
On 9/13/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Most of what I've seen in the archives is that there are issues that come up periodically, with never much consensus or a slow shift in how the issues
Interestingly, there is no FAQ for this list. That's somewhat rare for such a large list. Then again, what would the questions look like:
Q: Admin X is trying to oppress my neutral point of view! A: No he's not. Fuck off.
Steve
On 9/13/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Most of what I've seen in the archives is that there are issues that
come up
periodically, with never much consensus or a slow shift in how the
issues
Interestingly, there is no FAQ for this list. That's somewhat rare for such a large list. Then again, what would the questions look like:
Q: Admin X is trying to oppress my neutral point of view! A: No he's not. Fuck off.
... and something similar happens on Wikipedia and the #wikipedia@freenode IRC channel. Blocked users (generally newbies) join the channel to complain against their blocking admins. They are provoked and goaded into retorting badly and then one of the chanops has an excuse to boot them out of the channel. That's not general human behaviour, that's demeaning, dehumanising and inconsiderate trolling from WikiNerds who don't have a social life.
--Anirudh
Steve
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Anirudh wrote:
On 9/13/07, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/13/07, phoebe ayers phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Most of what I've seen in the archives is that there are issues that
come up
periodically, with never much consensus or a slow shift in how the
issues
Interestingly, there is no FAQ for this list. That's somewhat rare for such a large list. Then again, what would the questions look like:
Q: Admin X is trying to oppress my neutral point of view! A: No he's not. Fuck off.
... and something similar happens on Wikipedia and the #wikipedia@freenode IRC channel. Blocked users (generally newbies) join the channel to complain against their blocking admins. They are provoked and goaded into retorting badly and then one of the chanops has an excuse to boot them out of the channel. That's not general human behaviour, that's demeaning, dehumanising and inconsiderate trolling from WikiNerds who don't have a social life.
Ahhhh! Sounds like one more good reason to stay away from IRC.
Ec
On 9/12/07, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Folks,
I have just spent some time reviewing the List's archives for the past several months, and it is clear something is changing and not for the good. The dialogues have become more combative, argumentative and downright mean. The individual contributions have become more aggressive, intolerant, patronizing, bullying, insulting, and downright mean. There has been a steady decline in fairness, civility and just plain listening.
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are willing to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
What's going on?
Marc Riddell
on 9/12/07 6:54 PM, phoebe ayers at phoebe.wiki@gmail.com wrote:
Did you read through more than just the last few months? There's six years of archived lists; they make for pretty interesting if headache-inducing reading. I would be interested in your conclusions based on a year or three's worth of data. (Of course it's very time-consuming to read archives, I know!)
I was able to devote just enough time to review the past few months. I also spent some time scanning many of the Talk Pages in Wikipedia. It is clear that, in the interpersonal discourses of the Project, the language is deteriorating, and the abuse is increasing.
And, of the other Mailing Lists associated with the Project, this one seems to be in the greatest decline in terms of civility, and the ability of persons to argue a point without resorting to abusive language. The one great exception to the Lists is foundation-l. But this is like the executives of a company, meeting on the topmost floor of the company's building, completely out of touch with what is happening with the PEOPLE on the floors below. Not a promising picture!
Most of what I've seen in the archives is that there are issues that come up periodically, with never much consensus or a slow shift in how the issues are argued; and issues that keep coming up but have a drift towards consensus until something gets done. It's also interesting to note the various groups of people that crop up, are very active on the lists for a few months or even years, then go away; versus the few hardy souls that are still posting and have been here since the beginning. Also interesting are the brilliant ideas/proposals that you see pop up once in a while that seem perfectly reasonable, but nothing ever happened with; occasionally an entirely different, newly enthusiastic person will come up with the same idea later. There's definitely a rhythm to what issues come up and how that I haven't really spent enough time with the archives to determine; but the lists seem to have been pretty argumentative since the beginning all in all, with presumably a steadily expanding readership, but perhaps not a proportional increase in posters at any one time.
Reasonable points, Phoebe. But there is a great difference between "argumentative" and abusive. Interpersonal, as well as inter-group communication is an art as well as a science. There are methods to improve it. But it requires acknowledgement of a problem, and the determination to solve it.
Marc
On 12/09/2007, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Folks,
I have just spent some time reviewing the List's archives for the past several months, and it is clear something is changing and not for the good. The dialogues have become more combative, argumentative and downright mean. The individual contributions have become more aggressive, intolerant, patronizing, bullying, insulting, and downright mean. There has been a steady decline in fairness, civility and just plain listening.
Also, it appears that the majority of the Members of this List are willing to scrutinize anyone or anything but themselves.
What's going on?
Marc Riddell
Well, as far as I can tell from what I've seen on-wiki since I signed up in March 04, the mailing list is a reasonably accurate picture of the direction the project as a whole is going.
Zoney