I find Trillium's denied e-mail to be off-topic but hardly so objectionable
that a moderator reviewing it should deny it. If it is the case that a
moderator suggested minor stylistic changes (couple days to couple of
days), that seems a bit distasteful and probably not what list members
would imagine a moderator doing.
Delays in processing moderated posts causing them to become untimely is
something that I think is unavoidable, and the solution of course is to not
cause yourself to be put on moderation. The mods are volunteers and have
historically hardly been careless about placing people on moderation willy
nilly.
On Wed, Jul 27, 2016 at 4:56 AM, Trillium Corsage <trillium2014(a)yandex.com>
wrote:
I've been placed in "moderate" status on
this list (I criticize the reason
but it would be a distraction to get into that right now). It's often
frustrating to receive the "rejected" notice which comes often without
explanation at all, and sometimes with unexplained explanation if you'll
tolerate the phrase i.e. "a moderator has found your email would not be
helpful" (why?).
Once the moderators took like three days to disapprove my email, and
actually gave the reason that "the conversation has now moved on from that
point."
Let me discuss the most recent example from last week which was
frustrating to me. For the sake of discussion I'll copy-paste my email in
question (it's at least non-offensive in any reasonable sense, and it'd be
a stretch to call it even disagreeable) at the very end of this email, and
tell you what happened.
The email was rejected on the following bases:
A) "I may approve this email if you change the subject to reflect the
content." Now, it was a response to Brigham's farewell message asking that
he answer about a matter that occurred during his tenure. Yeah, I guess I
could break up the email chain with a fresh header (so could the moderator)
but is this truly grounds to moderate? And as I said in the email to the
moderator, there was a timing issue. By the time I got the rejection
message, Brigham had packed his desk and exited the WMF HQ no doubt. Note
also that the moderator says he "may" approve if I do that. Or he may not.
So he's setting up an iterative process.
B) The moderator then gave me two suggestions on improving my phrasing
within the email. For example I said "Mr. Brigham leaves in a couple days"
but the moderator preferred "couple *of* days." Is this truly basis for
moderation?! Minute preferences of writing style?
C) Then came the insult. The moderator suggested I was "baiting the WMF,"
and copied his fellow moderators to chime in. So he's now set up my email
for a "consensus" style of approval. All the moderators must agree it's
okay. It doesn't move on one or the other them, everybody has to sign off.
My email (you can read it down below as I said) is not "baiting" (or
trolling which I'd argue he really meant) it describes things, makes my
point, refers in detail to past efforts I made to get an answer, and is
generally polite.
All for your perusal on the Wikimedia-l moderation question. Anyhow, I did
feel aggravated at the time, and it turned me off to the list in general.
This email itself will likely be rejected, if it is I'll consider sending
it direct to the list participants that have commented.
Trillium Corsage
26.07.2016, 14:58, "Brill Lyle" <wp.brilllyle(a)gmail.com>om>:
I was on a very active music mailing list for
over 10 years and I was
grateful it was not moderated. Moderation can inhibit discussion, even
when
there are disruptors, and it also requires
moderators donate a lot of
volunteer hours. Which I think within the Wikimedia family community is
already being required of many of us. So I would vote against
moderation.
If an argument / shift was towards moderation, maybe it could be based
on
edit count and/or contributions? But that seems
a bit extreme and awful.
- Erika
*Erika Herzog*
Wikipedia *User:BrillLyle <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:BrillLyle
*
On Tue, Jul 26, 2016 at 4:26 AM, Asaf Bartov <abartov(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> A meta-question: I am wondering whether, if one thinks a user on this
list
> should be moderated, it is better to
discuss it privately with the
list
> admins (who, if convinced, could announce
the moderation publicly, or
not),
or
publicly on this list (explicitly inviting more opinions, being
transparent about my position regarding moderating the user, but also
embarrassing the user whatever the outcome).
Thoughts?
A.
--
Asaf Bartov
Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
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<begin text rejected Trillium Corsage email>
Mr. Brigham, although I've disagreed with some of the legally-meaningful
actions taken by WMF during your tenure as well as the light actions taken
against abusive administrative participants such as JurgenNL and TBloemink
in the Moiramoira affair, I wish no person ill and in fact say good luck to
you at Youtube.
However since you're still on the clock so to speak at WMF for another
couple days, I'm asking you to give a bit more description on the board's
move about 18 months to remove the identification requirement for those
volunteer administrative participants it accords access to the non-public
information (IPs, cookies, etc.) of regular editors.
I found this to be quite a betrayal of the rank and file editors whom had
been led to believe the WMF assumed at least some responsibility, i.e. know
who they are, for the online-privacy-affecting actions of the
administrators, checkusers, oversighters, arbs, stewards, and UTRS/OTRS
volunteers. You must have recommended the change to proceed, or at least
not counseled against it, otherwise the board wouldn't have done so. Why
did you do it?
Rest assured I have looked all over for explanation and anything you might
have said. I don't come and ask you this on the Wikimedia-l mailing list
without having looked hard. I'm aware that Samuel J. Klein was the board
member that raised the motion. When I asked him about it, he was
unresponsive and terse except to say I should look over his previous public
statements on the matter, not linking me to any. I looked all over for
Samuel's public statements on the matter but they seem to be a rare species
as I spied none at all.
Lastly, I'm aware that the new access to non-public information policy
requires the administrative participant to log on to some system, check a
box indicating he or she has read the policy, and then "enter a name." Can
you (or anyone?) point to me to a WMF person who can provide the statistics
and other information as to how many have provided their names, how many's
accesses were removed as a consequence of *not* providing their names, what
exactly is accepted as a "name," what occurs when the administrative
participant inputs for examples just a first name, or a nickname, or a
username?
Appreciate your reading, and thanks in advance for answering.
<end text rejected Trillium Corsage email>