Welcome back. I've been wondering what the result of the recent discussion on this list with regards to raising the level of conversation would be. I hope we haven't forgotten already. Jimbo characterized this list as 'increasingly useless as a mailing list because it is so frequently dominated by people who seem to be very "bitter and mean-spirited" to the point that they are on the attack no matter what happens.' With the Foundation increasingly becoming more of a formal organization this comment (which I consider to be true) bothers me tremendously. We need a venue for transparent communication between the community and the Foundation where all parties feel comfortable speaking. Why was this particular comment not moderated?
On Fri, Feb 1, 2008 at 12:41 PM, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
Hi, Wikimedians.
Michael Snow has persuaded me to return to Foundation-L, and his arguments have enough merit that I've decided to give the list another shot.
I should add at the outset that I actually do take frivolous comparisons to Nazis or the Holocaust quite seriously -- I think joking about either subject tends to trivialize a very traumatic historical period, and I think we're better off remembering that period with a great deal of consideration and seriousness. I originally left this list because I felt that almost any response I might make to such a comparison was complicit in such trivialization, and I didn't want to be complicit.
That said, I am of course willing to be myself the object of joking and abuse on this list, which is probably as it should be.
--Mike
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