Hello, I strongly agree with what Chris wrote. In the Strategy discussions, I have experienced and witnessed several times that defenders of the "strategy synthesis/recommendations" do not want to talk about an issue. They say things like: * "this feels like défa vu" * "you are not constructive" * "we must look forward, not backward" * "we don't want to talk about details now, we leave that for later" This kind of reactions do not contribute to an atmosphere in which I feel that my concerns are taken seriously. Kind regards Ziko
Am Di., 4. Feb. 2020 um 08:57 Uhr schrieb Chris Keating < chriskeatingwiki@gmail.com>:
Superprotect is now over five years old. Superprotect's removal is now
over
four years old. It was a mistake, and it was explicitly acknowledged as such: the then-ED of the WMF said it had "set up a precedent of mistrust". Almost all of the people involved in it are no longer
affiliated
with the Wikimedia Foundation, and in fact, plenty of the staff members
at
the Wikimedia Foundation were hired *after* superprotect was removed.
I don't think bringing up superprotect in this discussion is especially relevant or helpful.
I sort of want to agree with this, but actually I think it goes a bit deeper.
If you ask questions about the relationship between the WMF and the community, sooner rather than later someone will talk about Superprotect. If you ask any of the 1,000 people who signed the petition against Superprotect, most of whom are still active one way or another, then Superprotect will probably be the first thing out of their mouths, even though it happened 6 years ago. It's sufficiently ingrained in peoples' minds that asking these people not to talk about Superprotect is like a British person asking someone from the USA not to talk about the Boston Tea Party.
In part this is because people were very angry about the issue at the time, and that anger was dealt with very poorly at the time.
In part it's because people perceive there is nothing to prevent an identical situation recurring. In some ways I think this perception is unfair, for all the reasons you mention. But it still exists, and in part it exists because of things the WMF has not done. The Foundation's expectations about how it interacts with the community remain fairly unclear and fairly undocumented, from the Board level down. I recall there have been some written statements of how the WMF now handles product features, though I think this didn't come the ED or less the Board. I don't believe there was ever a written review publilshed of Superprotect, while there are written reviews and statements lessons learned from many other situations that had much less impact. In short, the WMF is not seen as having put the issue to bed in a way that results in everyone involved moving on.
Thanks,
Chris _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe