I didn't make any speculation as to the potential views of any
non-participating editors. I didn't even proffer my own view.
I do find it telling that the assumption was made as to what side I would
fall on. My problem with how these discussions unfold is that there is a
vocal minority that dominate every single last one of them which does
nothing to inspire me to engage (along with many other editors I know). You
are right that the length and tone of the discussions is a huge factor in
that, along with the general fatigue brought on by the wall of text effect.
There is a strong element of certain editors continuously setting the tone
of these discussions which is unbearably adversarial and exclusionary.
On Wed 12 Jun 2019, 22:33 Todd Allen, <toddmallen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I don't believe we can presume everyone who
hasn't participated in the
discussion would like to disagree but is afraid to.
Among all active contributors, I suspect non-participants are mostly a mix
of unaware of the issue, don't have a strong opinion about the issue, don't
understand what's happening and don't want to devote the time to
understanding it, or don't care. Given the WMF's actions, there may indeed
even be some who do not like what they've done, but are afraid to be seen
speaking against them--look what happened to the last guy! And of course
some people on both sides might be hesitant to enter a discussion that's
rather heated and very fast-moving, not to mention the sheer size of the
page to read just to catch up on what already happened.
So, pretty much every discussion is decided by those who choose to
participate in it. I don't know any way around that; we can't force people
to participate. At some point, if you don't stick your hand up, you don't
get counted.
Todd
On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 3:10 PM Rebecca O'Neill <rebeccanineil(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Just you reply to your point on how many people
are speaking out against
this decision, I'm a relatively active and interested editor and I have
no
interest in voicing my opinion there as the
atmosphere is so toxic. There
is always a danger of the tyranny of a vocal and motivated minority
appearing to be the dominant opinion of the community as a whole. I would
proffer that that is a deeply flawed premise, if we were to take into
account the number of people engaged in this discussion and compare it to
the number of regular contributors.
On Wed 12 Jun 2019, 22:01 Yaroslav Blanter, <ymbalt(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Just to summarize the difference between WMF and ArbCom, in view of the
> majority of the en.wiki community:
>
> We elect ArbCom, and if they do not do what they should be doing, they
do
not get
re-elected in two years, which happens on a regular basis
We do not elect WMF and in fact we have no means of influencing WMF
(apart
of the three Trustees we elect every three years
who are themselves
typically alienated from the community). Short of taking down the
fundraiser banner or of organizing a Wikipedia blackout.
This is the difference, and this is why virtually everybody who had to
say
> smth about this episode was unhappy with the process. Without looking
at
> the diffs, I only remember three users who
were perfectly happy with
what
happened,
out of hundreds who said smth.
One unfortunate consequence of the whole episode was, whoever is right
and
> whoever is wrong, the general opinion about WMF in the community is
> all-time low, with people generally not prepared to believe to anything
> communicated to them. If WMF is not interested in getting very
unpleasant
surprises, they should start working towards building the community
trust.
>
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
>
> On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 10:48 PM GorillaWarfare <
> gorillawarfarewikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 8:36 AM Fæ <faewik(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Any Arbcom approved sanction against Fram based on the evidence
would
not
> > be controversial for anyone.
>
>
> Sorry for coming in late to this conversation; I've mostly been
following
> > the sicussion happening on-wiki. But I wanted to pipe up to say that
I
absolutely do not believe this is true (see also my
comment here
<
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia_talk:Arbitration_Commi…
> > >).
> > To repeat my comment somewhat, the English Wikipedia ArbCom has in
the
> past
> > had to place similar bans: that is, ones against long-term
contributors
> with
many supporters, and ones in which the full details behind what
led
to
> the ban cannot be revealed publicly. The reaction has been quite
similar
> to
> > the one the WMF is currently experiencing—"star chamber"
accusations,
> > claims that we've abused our power or the process, and assumptions
that
> the
> > ban is unwarranted unless everyone is allowed to scrutinize the
private
> > evidence. The ArbCom is empowered to
take action based off of
> > privately-submitted evidence and private discussion, but in practice
it
> is
> > extremely poorly-received when we do, basically across-the-board.
> >
> > – Molly (GorillaWarfare)
> >
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GorillaWarfare
> > _______________________________________________
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