Marc Riddell wrote:
on 1/8/09 9:20 PM, Erik Moeller at erik(a)wikimedia.org
wrote:
2009/1/8 Marc Riddell
<michaeldavid86(a)comcast.net>et>:
This is pure unsubstantiated rhetoric. There are
real-life, real-time
problems - serious problems - that directly involve the people occurring in
the English Wikipedia for example. Where is your help?
Marc, can you give examples
of what kind of help you'd like to see?
Yes, Erik, I can. Just two for now, it's been a long day for me and I still
have tomorrow's sessions to prepare for.
* A person at the Foundation level who has true, sensitive inter-personal as
well a inter-group skills, and who would keep a close eye on the Project
looking for impasses when they arise. The person would need to be objective
and lobby-resistant ;-). This would be the person of absolute last resort in
settling community-confounding problems.
Why are local ArbComs insufficient for this? If the community is unable
to resolve the dispute, I highly doubt someone who's a relative outsider
stepping in the middle would be able to unless they just issue an
official, non-negotiable edict.
*This is more of a cultural issue: I would like to see
the more established
members of the community be more open to criticism and dissent from within
the community. As it is now that tolerance is extremely low. I'm not talking
about me; I'm an old Berkeley war horse and have been called things I had to
look up :-). But I have gotten private emails from persons in the community
with legitimate beefs, along with some good ideas for change, but are very
reluctant to voice them because of how they believe they will be received.
And how is the foundation supposed to resolve this? Counsel people into
changing their opinions? Ban people who appear to be suppressing
criticism? Forcibly change policies? Act as proxies for people afraid of
criticism? I'm struggling to think of anything that could be done on a
foundation level that would be effective here.
Alex (wikipedia:en:User:Mr.Z-man)