Marc Riddell writes:
Mike, please stop and listen. The Community, which is the heart and soul of this very Project, is ventilating, and making some extremely important points. Please stop trying to control, and re-direct, this dialogue in a more Foundation-comfortable direction. Listen and Learn.
Marc, I've been listening all along. Neither expression of disagreement nor an effort to focus on constructive solutions entails the conclusion that someone isn't listening.
Now, did you hear and learn from what I just said?
Best regards,
--Mike
I'm generally in favor of Jimmy's leadership, or the idea of project leadership in general. See my March 27 post opposing the poll to remove his Founder flag, on meta. I'm also strongly in favor of reform in the area of sexually explicit imagery on Commons and other projects, see the many threads I've started or participated in over the past three years on this subject. A week ago, I would have said I'd very much like to see Jimmy's leadership in this particular area.
On the other hand, leadership is more than taking unilateral action. It's more than power, and more than authority. If Jimmy had explained himself fully, perhaps with a statement very similar to what Mike has written in this thread, the reaction would have been much more muted. He may have had active assistance from the Commons community instead of active opposition and an angry backlash. The "GodKing" status is the result of political capital; the goal should be to provide leadership while expending as little of that as necessary, because once it's gone it's gone for good - c.f. Jimmy's relinquishing of certain rights on the English Wikipedia.
Lastly, I think his recent activity has been clumsy and amateurish, particularly prompted as it was by Fox News. For those not familiar with Fox News, its impact and its reputation... The rest of the mainstream media views its claims with suspicion and some degree of disdain, and with good reason. By reacting so aggressively to Fox's counter-factual claims, we make it harder for our allies and responsible journalists to argue and prove that we are not guilty of hosting "child pornography" and tolerating pedophilia. That's too bad - as they say, the coverup is usually worse than the crime.
Nathan
On Sat, May 08, 2010 at 02:06:09PM -0400, David Levy wrote:
Mike Godwin wrote:
All metaphors are at least somewhat misleading, and some metaphors are deeply misleading.
At least no one is comparing Jimbo with Nazis or Hitler yet.
Idiot!
That's his http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BerserkButton ! %-/
You better apologise. Maybe he'll let you live. ;-)
sincerely, Kim Bruning
Ps. You lose.
On Sun, May 9, 2010 at 4:06 AM, David Levy lifeisunfair@gmail.com wrote:
Mike Godwin wrote:
All metaphors are at least somewhat misleading, and some metaphors are deeply misleading.
At least no one is comparing Jimbo with Nazis or Hitler yet.
Err, that happened days ago on Jimbo's talk page and, less directly, here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TheDJ&oldid=38893008
-- John Vandenberg
John Vandenberg wrote:
Err, that happened days ago on Jimbo's talk page and, less directly, here:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:TheDJ&oldid=38893008
I was [humorously] referring to this mailing list's current threads. There are forums in which such a comparison is commonplace, no doubt.
David Levy
Marc Riddell writes:
Mike, please stop and listen. The Community, which is the heart and soul of this very Project, is ventilating, and making some extremely important points. Please stop trying to control, and re-direct, this dialogue in a more Foundation-comfortable direction. Listen and Learn.
Marc, I've been listening all along. Neither expression of disagreement nor an effort to focus on constructive solutions entails the conclusion that someone isn't listening.
Now, did you hear and learn from what I just said?
Best regards,
--Mike
Mike, my ability to hear is good and I learn from everything I hear, my ability to listen is excellent, and my ability to analyze is awesome :-). This Community is trying to tell you something and, via this List, the entire Foundation staff. Their anger right now is directed at a person whose recent actions have shown a total disregard of their existence. And they want some concrete assurance that it will not happen again. That is what they want to talk about. Yet you insist on trying to steer the conversation toward dealing rationally with policy. That rationality cannot be accomplished with the level of emotion that exists within the group you are trying to steer.
In psychological terms, denial of an issue is really saying, "Anything but that". To admit that the "that" is the problem might mean having to confront, and possibly get rid of, the "that". There is a hint of that in your trying to steer this conversation.
Marc Riddell
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org