--- On Thu, 3/12/09, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
From: Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Pissed off at en:Wikisource To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Thursday, March 12, 2009, 3:03 AM Birgitte SB wrote:
Sorry but there is no reason to have a RFC on Meta for
anything remotely like this situation. And I would say that if were regarding any wiki (I am sure I have said that for similar situations on other wikis in the past). The wikis are autonomous on these issues. If someone has reason why en.WS adminship rules are incompatible with the general purposes of the project, then please share. Otherwise discuss in the proper forum which is en.WS.
I have since the very beginning been a strong supporter of project autonomy, and have usually been very critical of anyone who tries to impose the rules of other projects in Wikisource. Last summer, when another de-sysop process happened, I also spoke strongly against allowing ourselves to be overly influenced by that person's overly bad behaviour on other projects; I conservatively concurred with what happened based solely on events at wikisource.
In the course of the discussion about me, I considered coming here at an early stage, but decided that I would let things play out on wiki first. I did not raise the issue here until a few days after the decision was closed and implemented.
If I had not commented on events here, would you have noticed it, and would it even have crossed your mind to comment as you did above?
I don't follow exactly what you mean. I often comment here that some new thread is an internal issue and not a Foundation one. If you had commented on-wiki, I would have responded there. If you hadn't commented about the situation at all, I wouldn't have commented either.
Given
the still relatively small community at en:ws, where does one turn for a calmer and more objective analysis from someone who is not a part of the apparent piling on?
You can approach community members who were not part of the apparent piling on and ask them for such an analysis. You can ask someone who is not part of the community and that you respect for generally giving calm and objective analysis to share their opinion on en.WS. I am not against people from out of the community helping out with this. I just don't believe either such a wide announcement nor having the opinions being placed outside of en.WS should be encouraged.
If the result of raising the
issue here is a fairer discussion on wiki, I can't complain about that. There should always be a place for off-wiki safety valves.
I see that you have asked a question on my talk page, so I will address more specific matters there shortly.
Ec
Thank you for bringing the specifics back on-wiki..
Birgitte SB
Birgitte SB wrote:
--- On Thu, 3/12/09, Ray Saintonge wrote:
In the course of the discussion about me, I considered coming here at an early stage, but decided that I would let things play out on wiki first. I did not raise the issue here until a few days after the decision was closed and implemented.
If I had not commented on events here, would you have noticed it, and would it even have crossed your mind to comment as you did above?
I don't follow exactly what you mean. I often comment here that some new thread is an internal issue and not a Foundation one. If you had commented on-wiki, I would have responded there. If you hadn't commented about the situation at all, I wouldn't have commented either.
Maybe it's not just a matter of "would" you have, but of "could" you have. You were certainly aware of the debate, since you did clarify a non-controversial side issue. For you or Zhaladshar to have done anything more would have compromised your position as bureaucrats.
Given
the still relatively small community at en:ws, where does one turn for a calmer and more objective analysis from someone who is not a part of the apparent piling on?
You can approach community members who were not part of the apparent piling on and ask them for such an analysis. You can ask someone who is not part of the community and that you respect for generally giving calm and objective analysis to share their opinion on en.WS. I am not against people from out of the community helping out with this. I just don't believe either such a wide announcement nor having the opinions being placed outside of en.WS should be encouraged.
That perhaps represents an idealized perspective. When the two who spoke out in my favour were attacked the atmosphere was poisoned. I don't blame the quieter members from saying to themselves, "I don't want any part of this." Even outside of the en.ws community, this sort of debate is not to everyone's taste. The wide approach may indeed not be suited to all circumstances, but there are times when it may be appropriate. There are also times, as John has suggested, when a procedure on Meta may be the best.
Ec
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