The Cunctator writes:
But please, don't ask for our harmony, trust, generosity, support, and kindness.
Earn it.
This is a fair point, so long as it is a reciprocal obligation. I have great respect for those who have honest criticisms of any process or decision at the Foundation. But sometimes those criticisms are framed in terms of recrimination, bitterness, mean-spiritedness, and so on. This choice of tone tends to obscure the message.
I think we can all do better. The way you create generosity is not by waiting around and demanding that other people be generous towards you. The way you create kindness is not by insisting that we get none from you until we "earn it."
I for one try to be generous with everyone here, which I can do until about the 10th iteration of a sarcastic attack, after which I am forced to start making jokes. Mostly.
--Mike
The Cunctator writes:
But please, don't ask for our harmony, trust, generosity, support, and kindness.
Earn it.
on 12/19/07 3:07 PM, Mike Godwin at mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
This is a fair point, so long as it is a reciprocal obligation. I have great respect for those who have honest criticisms of any process or decision at the Foundation. But sometimes those criticisms are framed in terms of recrimination, bitterness, mean-spiritedness, and so on. This choice of tone tends to obscure the message.
I think we can all do better. The way you create generosity is not by waiting around and demanding that other people be generous towards you. The way you create kindness is not by insisting that we get none from you until we "earn it."
I for one try to be generous with everyone here, which I can do until about the 10th iteration of a sarcastic attack, after which I am forced to start making jokes. Mostly.
--Mike
*Be direct - be fair - be assertive - but, above all, BE CIVIL.*
Marc Riddell
On Dec 19, 2007 12:07 PM, Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
I for one try to be generous with everyone here, which I can do until about the 10th iteration of a sarcastic attack, after which I am forced to start making jokes. Mostly.
As the Wikipedia discussion progresses, the probability that Mike will be forced to demonstrate his *cough* sense of humor approaches unity?
(Alas, poor news.groups, we knew ye well...)
--- Mike Godwin mgodwin@wikimedia.org wrote:
The Cunctator writes:
But please, don't ask for our harmony, trust,
generosity, support,
and kindness.
Earn it.
This is a fair point, so long as it is a reciprocal obligation. I have great respect for those who have honest criticisms of any process or decision at the Foundation. But sometimes those criticisms are framed in terms of recrimination, bitterness, mean-spiritedness, and so on. This choice of tone tends to obscure the message.
I think we can all do better. The way you create generosity is not by waiting around and demanding that other people be generous towards you. The way you create kindness is not by insisting that we get none from you until we "earn it."
This all sounds nice, however you are truly judging this as reciprocal we have already lost. While those people representing WMF are inherently some of the best people on this list, the "reciprocating" group is open to anyone. There will always be bitter, mean-spirited people around. If lack of transparency is really due to these things, lets increase the moderation to a level where there is enough kindness to warrant transparency. Otherwise everyone will just continue to be held hostage by lowest common denominator.
Birgitte SB
____________________________________________________________________________________ Looking for last minute shopping deals? Find them fast with Yahoo! Search. http://tools.search.yahoo.com/newsearch/category.php?category=shopping
Birgitte SB wrote:
This all sounds nice, however you are truly judging this as reciprocal we have already lost. While those people representing WMF are inherently some of the best people on this list, the "reciprocating" group is open to anyone. There will always be bitter, mean-spirited people around. If lack of transparency is really due to these things, lets increase the moderation to a level where there is enough kindness to warrant transparency. Otherwise everyone will just continue to be held hostage by lowest common denominator.
I have to say that I agree with Birgitte here. For me, Foundation-l has becoming incresasingly useless as a mailing list because it is so frequently dominated by people who seem to be very "bitter and mean-spirited" to the point that they are on the attack no matter what happens.
Open dialog and debate is fine. Criticism is fine. But a minority of people endlessly beating others up without bothering to stop and "assume good faith" just a little bit now and then just makes the list useless.
"The boy who cried wolf" is a classic tale which has some relevancy here.
The Foundation is the most transparent organization that I know of, to the point of pathology sometimes. Ironically, that transparency breeds in some an expectation so high, that it is assumed that everything has to be discussed openly. Someone suggested to me the other day that internal-l and all private mailing lists should be closed, and all business conducted openly on the wiki. This is beyond nonsense, because it would push the Foundation to *less* transparency, not *more*.
I am unsure what we should do about foundation-l. It has become a sewer. It is difficult to balance our very strong desire for an unmoderated forum where people can feel comfortable making strong criticisms (nothing wrong with that!) with a forum where trolls are exhausting a lot of good people and spreading misinformation due to the inability of others to keep up with the sheer volume of malice.
--Jimbo
Birgitte SB wrote:
This all sounds nice, however you are truly judging this as reciprocal we have already lost. While those people representing WMF are inherently some of the best people on this list, the "reciprocating" group is open to anyone. There will always be bitter, mean-spirited people around. If lack of transparency is really due to these things, lets increase the moderation to a level where there is enough kindness to warrant transparency. Otherwise everyone will just continue to be held hostage by lowest common denominator.
Open communities have always had their openness and goodwill tested by emotional, clueless, suspicious, and irritable community members, who naturally put other people off (both intentionally and not); as well as by intentional trolls, manipulative people, and sowers if ill will.
Wikipedia was built on a foundation of such people (yes, even clueless people -- and they don't remain cluelss for long when you welcome them ;). We are lucky to have problems of primarily the former type on this list -- even our trolls tend to be people who support the community's mission in some fashion; not people who are here because they stumbled across it and want attention.
So I am really sad when I see longtime contributors who no longer read the -en list because it offends them so much; or who see this list as a sewer. We have to remedy this; hopefully without raising the barrier to participation.
People are hesitant to moderate because noone wants to censor discussion or prevent people from expressing valid perspectives. This is good. Let's increase /mediation/, not what we call list 'moderation' (blocking list contributors). The best community solutions to such situations that I have seen had skilled mediators to step in where there was serious argument. I value the discussions we have on this list very much, and hope that we will find alternatives to giving up on sharing ideas here.
Are there any mediators out there willing to take on [part of] a list? (perhaps even some of our current list mods?)
SJ
--- SJ Klein meta.sj@gmail.com wrote:
Birgitte SB wrote:
This all sounds nice, however you are truly
judging
this as reciprocal we have already lost. While
those
people representing WMF are inherently some of
the
best people on this list, the "reciprocating"
group is
open to anyone. There will always be bitter, mean-spirited people around. If lack of
transparency
is really due to these things, lets increase the moderation to a level where there is enough
kindness
to warrant transparency. Otherwise everyone will
just
continue to be held hostage by lowest common denominator.
Open communities have always had their openness and goodwill tested by emotional, clueless, suspicious, and irritable community members, who naturally put other people off (both intentionally and not); as well as by intentional trolls, manipulative people, and sowers if ill will.
Wikipedia was built on a foundation of such people (yes, even clueless people -- and they don't remain cluelss for long when you welcome them ;). We are lucky to have problems of primarily the former type on this list -- even our trolls tend to be people who support the community's mission in some fashion; not people who are here because they stumbled across it and want attention.
So I am really sad when I see longtime contributors who no longer read the -en list because it offends them so much; or who see this list as a sewer. We have to remedy this; hopefully without raising the barrier to participation.
People are hesitant to moderate because noone wants to censor discussion or prevent people from expressing valid perspectives. This is good. Let's increase /mediation/, not what we call list 'moderation' (blocking list contributors). The best community solutions to such situations that I have seen had skilled mediators to step in where there was serious argument. I value the discussions we have on this list very much, and hope that we will find alternatives to giving up on sharing ideas here.
Are there any mediators out there willing to take on [part of] a list? (perhaps even some of our current list mods?)
SJ
Moderation does not necessarily mean *blocking*. Inappropriate posts can be returned to the sender asking them to rephrase their concerns into a more appropriate tone. Or if the problem posts are just "pot-shots", the sender can be asked try again by contributing something more substantial on the issue without the personal remarks. If you don't trust the current moderators so let through subsequent posts from potentially moderated contributors, perhaps you would be willing to volunteer becoming a moderator yourself. I would certainly trust your judgment.
Birgitte SB
____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs
SJ Klein wrote:
People are hesitant to moderate because noone wants to censor discussion or prevent people from expressing valid perspectives. This is good. Let's increase /mediation/,
I'm not sure what you mean by mediation. I'm not a member of wikien-l, but foundation-l sure has changed. In 2004 it saw 200-300 messages per month. In 2005-2006 this was 500 messages, a high-volume list but still interesting. Now in October and November 2007, we've seen 1000 messages per month. The technology scales, but people do not. It's certainly possible to filter out a handful of people who comment on everything, but then it's no longer the same list. One could just as well abandon the list.
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month. That would force everyone to pick their fights (which is always a good advice, but rarely enforced), instead of allowing the list to degrade into a chat forum. Being able to post 20 messages a month is not censorship.
Only the following dozen would have been restricted in November:
Posts 97 From: "Thomas Dalton" -- 3 posts per day 60 From: "Brian McNeil" -- 2 posts per day 55 From: "David Gerard" 51 From: Anthony 47 From: GerardM 36 From: Ray Saintonge 34 From: geni 26 From: Florence Devouard 23 From: "Robert Rohde" 23 From: Marc Riddell 21 From: Dan Rosenthal 21 From: "Andrew Gray"
These were close:
20 From: Mike Godwin 19 From: "Casey Brown" 17 From: Robert Horning 17 From: "Michael Bimmler" 17 From: "Erik Moeller" 13 From: "Brianna Laugher" 13 From: "Andrew Whitworth" 11 From: Waerth 11 From: Johannes Rohr 11 From: Christiano Moreschi 10 From: Brian 10 From: Aphaia
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month.
It might be better to have the limit be on a per-day basis?
97 From: "Thomas Dalton" -- 3 posts per day
My guess is that Thomas's contributions were not 3 per day evenly spaced, but zero for a significant part of the time and then massive participation in one or two threads that got overwhelming.
(I am not picking on Thomas here, other than that he was at the top of the list, volume-wise.)
A limit of 3 posts per day would not limit even his total output (by much), but would perhaps keep exciting threads from exploding to the point of being unreadable.
--Jimbo
On 12/21/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month.
It might be better to have the limit be on a per-day basis?
97 From: "Thomas Dalton" -- 3 posts per dayMy guess is that Thomas's contributions were not 3 per day evenly spaced, but zero for a significant part of the time and then massive participation in one or two threads that got overwhelming.
(I am not picking on Thomas here, other than that he was at the top of the list, volume-wise.)
A limit of 3 posts per day would not limit even his total output (by much), but would perhaps keep exciting threads from exploding to the point of being unreadable.
--Jimbo
Hmm. Three posts per day, by which timezone? UTC?
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
Jimmy Wales wrote:
It might be better to have the limit be on a per-day basis?
I don't think so. Sometimes when you have been away for a week and need to catch up, you can post useful comments on four or five messages, and it would be harmful to block that. But someone posting one or two messages every day at an even pace becomes a burden for all of the list. So a quota should span a week or longer. The mailing list archive is organized by month, so that seems to be a natural and reasonable unit.
My guess is that Thomas's contributions were not 3 per day evenly spaced, but zero for a significant part of the time and then massive participation in one or two threads that got overwhelming.
Posts 3 Date: Fri, 2 Nov 17 Date: Sat, 3 Nov 3 Date: Sun, 4 Nov 3 Date: Mon, 5 Nov 1 Date: Tue, 6 Nov 1 Date: Thu, 8 Nov 1 Date: Fri, 9 Nov 1 Date: Sat, 10 Nov 1 Date: Tue, 13 Nov 2 Date: Fri, 16 Nov 7 Date: Sat, 17 Nov 8 Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2 Date: Mon, 19 Nov 10 Date: Wed, 21 Nov 14 Date: Thu, 22 Nov 10 Date: Fri, 23 Nov 5 Date: Sun, 25 Nov 4 Date: Mon, 26 Nov 4 Date: Wed, 28 Nov
Maybe he has this free time on his hands, maybe he writes fast. But the list deteriorates. It becomes boring for the good people and newcomers are scared away. It's just like Loud Howard in a Dilbert strip. Or like a broken window neighborhood.
(I am not picking on Thomas here, other than that he was at the top of the list, volume-wise.)
But I can afford to play bad cop here.
On Dec 21, 2007 3:31 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month.
This is actually a nice solution, since people would have to be more thoughtful about what emails they did send. Of course, a better approach may be to limit the number of emails per thread, although people could just start different similarly-named threads to circumvent this.
I think what we really want is for people to think more before they send an email, be more composed in those emails, and to be more reserved before spamming a lot of messages to the list. It's hard to enforce a technical solution onto vague problems like these.
--Andrew Whitworth
on 12/22/07 4:34 PM, Andrew Whitworth at wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Dec 21, 2007 3:31 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month.
This is actually a nice solution, since people would have to be more thoughtful about what emails they did send. Of course, a better approach may be to limit the number of emails per thread, although people could just start different similarly-named threads to circumvent this.
I think what we really want is for people to think more before they send an email, be more composed in those emails, and to be more reserved before spamming a lot of messages to the list. It's hard to enforce a technical solution onto vague problems like these.
--Andrew Whitworth
Andrew,
Is the dialogue to be conversational? If it is, what happens if the response is one sentence? And the response to that is one sentence...?
Marc
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month.
People actually seem to be taking this seriously, for reasons that escape me, so perhaps a little nudge in the direction of reality is needed.
Limiting the number of messages an individual is permitted to post will only prevent active, honest individuals being insightful or helpful once they have used up their quota. If someone really wants to make themselves heard, they will simply subscribe multiple addresses to the list and continue posting. Only those who play by the rules will lose out.
No offense intended, but this is really a very bad idea. I mean, what's next, limiting the number of edits people can make to the wikis?
-Gurch
Matthew Britton wrote:
Limiting the number of messages an individual is permitted to post will only prevent active, honest individuals being insightful or helpful once they have used up their quota. If someone really wants to make themselves heard, they will simply subscribe multiple addresses to the list and continue posting. Only those who play by the rules will lose out.
If it is a social norm, like normal Wikipedia social norms, it can be roughly flexible enough to prevent either of those problems.
I think a policy of 1 or 2 posts a day, adhered to as a social norm, will make it possible for active, honest, insightful, thoughtful good people to be *more* heard. What we have right now is a small number of people (and only by chance I was not among them this month, I am surely an offender myself in the category of latching onto a thread and discussing it far beyond the point of positive returns!)... a small number of people making a disproportionate number of posts.
Fewer posts, less repetitive, and more quality, would be a good thing.
And, as a social norm, it can be fine to go over it now and then by accident or in good faith.
And violating it by subscribing multiple addresses? Unlikely. Pick out for yourself whoever you think is the worst poster to this list. Doesn't matter who it is, just whoever you think is the worst. Is that person likely to sockpuppet to speak more on the list? To subscribe multiple addresses and rules lawyer over what the idea of keeping a lid on the quantity really means?
I don't think so. There are people who post to this list, some in large volume, who I think add little more than confusion, misleading pseudoinformation, and general hateful nonsense. But I can't imagine any of them being so violative of social norms that they would resort to tactics like that just to be able to post a dozen times in a day.
No offense intended, but this is really a very bad idea. I mean, what's next, limiting the number of edits people can make to the wikis?
Wiki, as a medium, is very different from the mailing list, as a medium. So I don't know that the analogy holds.
--Jimbo
on 12/21/07 7:03 PM, Jimmy Wales at jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Matthew Britton wrote:
Limiting the number of messages an individual is permitted to post will only prevent active, honest individuals being insightful or helpful once they have used up their quota. If someone really wants to make themselves heard, they will simply subscribe multiple addresses to the list and continue posting. Only those who play by the rules will lose out.
If it is a social norm, like normal Wikipedia social norms, it can be roughly flexible enough to prevent either of those problems.
I think a policy of 1 or 2 posts a day, adhered to as a social norm, will make it possible for active, honest, insightful, thoughtful good people to be *more* heard. What we have right now is a small number of people (and only by chance I was not among them this month, I am surely an offender myself in the category of latching onto a thread and discussing it far beyond the point of positive returns!)... a small number of people making a disproportionate number of posts.
Fewer posts, less repetitive, and more quality, would be a good thing.
And, as a social norm, it can be fine to go over it now and then by accident or in good faith.
And violating it by subscribing multiple addresses? Unlikely. Pick out for yourself whoever you think is the worst poster to this list. Doesn't matter who it is, just whoever you think is the worst. Is that person likely to sockpuppet to speak more on the list? To subscribe multiple addresses and rules lawyer over what the idea of keeping a lid on the quantity really means?
I don't think so. There are people who post to this list, some in large volume, who I think add little more than confusion, misleading pseudoinformation, and general hateful nonsense. But I can't imagine any of them being so violative of social norms that they would resort to tactics like that just to be able to post a dozen times in a day.
No offense intended, but this is really a very bad idea. I mean, what's next, limiting the number of edits people can make to the wikis?
Wiki, as a medium, is very different from the mailing list, as a medium. So I don't know that the analogy holds.
--Jimbo
To be clear, what is being considered "a post"? If you ask a question, and I respond, then you respond, then I respond - does that constitute my 2 posts for the day?
Marc
Jimmy Wales wrote:
I think a policy of 1 or 2 posts a day, adhered to as a social norm, will make it possible for active, honest, insightful, thoughtful good people to be *more* heard. What we have right now is a small number of people (and only by chance I was not among them this month, I am surely an offender myself in the category of latching onto a thread and discussing it far beyond the point of positive returns!)... a small number of people making a disproportionate number of posts.
I'd reply to this, but I've used up my allotted posts for today. :D
-Gurch
On Dec 21, 2007 4:03 PM, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Matthew Britton wrote:
Limiting the number of messages an individual is permitted to post will only prevent active, honest individuals being insightful or helpful once they have used up their quota. If someone really wants to make themselves heard, they will simply subscribe multiple addresses to the list and continue posting. Only those who play by the rules will lose
out.
If it is a social norm, like normal Wikipedia social norms, it can be roughly flexible enough to prevent either of those problems.
I think a policy of 1 or 2 posts a day, adhered to as a social norm, will make it possible for active, honest, insightful, thoughtful good people to be *more* heard. What we have right now is a small number of people (and only by chance I was not among them this month, I am surely an offender myself in the category of latching onto a thread and discussing it far beyond the point of positive returns!)... a small number of people making a disproportionate number of posts.
<snip>
It's hard to miss the irony that your 4th post in 24 hours is being used to encourage people to limit postings to 1 or 2 per day.
Similarly, I don't think anyone here is really worried that 7 of Anthere's last 9 messages were off-topic or otherwise unjustified.
Whether by technical restrictions or "social norms", at best these proposals will cut down on the volume, and do relatively little to improve the signal to noise ratio.
Personally, I'm more inclined to agree with Brianna that the problem is one of format more than one of over-participation per se. Foundation-l mixes announcements about board resolutions, changes in staffing, meta level discussions on copyright, the occasional general complaint (e.g. "Racism on Commons" / "Checkuser abuse" threads), and discussions of who is honoring or vilifying us now.
As Brianna suggests, a forum or blog may well be a better way to structure some of these topics. Personally, I know if announcements had a blog structure, I'd use RSS to keep track of the new topics and only worry about following the feedback comments for topics that I was directly interested in rather than having to recieve copies of every comment.
At some level Foundation-l is a victim of Wikimedia's success. Long-term growth in the brand must inevitably filter into growth in the conversation about Wikimedia. Maybe one can stem that tide for a while by asking for restraint, but sooner or later the only real recourse is to restructure the conversation. Whether that restructuring is best accomplished by new mailing lists or new technologies, is a difficult question to answer, but I'm inclined to believe that mailing lists can't be the answer to everything.
-Robert A. Rohde
Robert Rohde wrote: .... ....
At some level Foundation-l is a victim of Wikimedia's success. Long-term growth in the brand must inevitably filter into growth in the conversation about Wikimedia. Maybe one can stem that tide for a while by asking for restraint, but sooner or later the only real recourse is to restructure the conversation. Whether that restructuring is best accomplished by new mailing lists or new technologies, is a difficult question to answer, but I'm inclined to believe that mailing lists can't be the answer to everything.
-Robert A. Rohde
Yea, and it would be a pity to throw out the baby with the bathwater...if contributors are watching their backs, as is suggested, we might miss out on a *really* insightful post and we would all be the poorer for it -- luke
This issue has been solved and resolved a million times since the early days of the Internets when gamers such as myself were addicted to MUDs. It's quite simple - you give people a limited number of turns per day and make having sockpuppets illegal. This stops people who have nothing better to do than sit around and play all day from advancing a ridiculous number of levels, and it also stops them from writing bots to play for them. Of course, they can use Tor or some other IP address masking technique, but that has only ever been a mild irritant, and they eventually make a mistake, such as logging into both accounts using the same IP address.
This has the positive side effect of causing you to stop and think about what you were going to do with your turns for that day. You might even plan it out, so as to make the absolute most of them. I think its a great idea for this list, although, I get by on very few myself =)
On Dec 21, 2007 4:46 PM, Matthew Britton matthew.britton@btinternet.com wrote:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month.
People actually seem to be taking this seriously, for reasons that escape me, so perhaps a little nudge in the direction of reality is needed.
Limiting the number of messages an individual is permitted to post will only prevent active, honest individuals being insightful or helpful once they have used up their quota. If someone really wants to make themselves heard, they will simply subscribe multiple addresses to the list and continue posting. Only those who play by the rules will lose out.
No offense intended, but this is really a very bad idea. I mean, what's next, limiting the number of edits people can make to the wikis?
-Gurch
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
I think you are confusing a mailing list with a MUD. The former is a communication tool. The latter is a game.
-Dan On Dec 22, 2007, at 4:41 PM, Brian wrote:
This issue has been solved and resolved a million times since the early days of the Internets when gamers such as myself were addicted to MUDs. It's quite simple - you give people a limited number of turns per day and make having sockpuppets illegal. This stops people who have nothing better to do than sit around and play all day from advancing a ridiculous number of levels, and it also stops them from writing bots to play for them. Of course, they can use Tor or some other IP address masking technique, but that has only ever been a mild irritant, and they eventually make a mistake, such as logging into both accounts using the same IP address.
This has the positive side effect of causing you to stop and think about what you were going to do with your turns for that day. You might even plan it out, so as to make the absolute most of them. I think its a great idea for this list, although, I get by on very few myself =)
On Dec 21, 2007 4:46 PM, Matthew Britton <matthew.britton@btinternet.com
wrote:
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month.
People actually seem to be taking this seriously, for reasons that escape me, so perhaps a little nudge in the direction of reality is needed.
Limiting the number of messages an individual is permitted to post will only prevent active, honest individuals being insightful or helpful once they have used up their quota. If someone really wants to make themselves heard, they will simply subscribe multiple addresses to the list and continue posting. Only those who play by the rules will lose out.
No offense intended, but this is really a very bad idea. I mean, what's next, limiting the number of edits people can make to the wikis?
-Gurch
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
I think you are confusing a mailing list with a MUD. The former is a communication tool. The latter is a game.
-Dan
This is true, but then Wikimedia projects have policies very similar to the rules he mentioned; I would like to think they are also communication tools rather than games, though I'm sure some would disagree with me.
-Gurch
Today only four emails and mine is fifth? It looks like people are afraid of being on moderation. And this is definitely not good for our communication.
On 23/12/2007, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Today only four emails and mine is fifth? It looks like people are afraid of being on moderation. And this is definitely not good for our communication.
It's the Sunday before Christmas. Mailing lists tend to die a natural death about this time as we all sit down and become either filled with fraternal bonhomie or swamped under irritating relatives :-)
On Dec 23, 2007 5:22 PM, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
On 23/12/2007, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
Today only four emails and mine is fifth? It looks like people are afraid of being on moderation. And this is definitely not good for our communication.
It's the Sunday before Christmas. Mailing lists tend to die a natural death about this time as we all sit down and become either filled with fraternal bonhomie or swamped under irritating relatives :-)
You have irritating relatives too? Glad to know i'm not alone :). I agree with this sentiment though, the relative lull now is because of the holidays, not because anybody fears moderation. The vast majority of active list members here aren't in any danger of it anyway.
--Andrew Whitworth
On 12/23/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
It's the Sunday before Christmas. Mailing lists tend to die a natural death about this time as we all sit down and become either filled with fraternal bonhomie or swamped under irritating relatives :-)
Oh :) I am totally out of customs, especially when they are not a part of daily pressure around me. Unlikely in Catholic and Protestant customs, Christmas in Serbian Orthodox Church is at January 7th. But, I'll miss that, too, almost for sure :) Actually, I won't... I'll get a dozens of SMSs on that day...
Milos Rancic wrote:
Today only four emails and mine is fifth? It looks like people are afraid of being on moderation. And this is definitely not good for our communication.
You may just not be getting the messages; check the archives. I thought I was on moderation myself after one of my own posts failed to materialize after several hours, but after communicating with another subsriber to the list via an unspecified non-mailing-list-based method, it transpired that everyone else and their dog had already read it.
-Gurch
On 12/24/07, Matthew Britton matthew.britton@btinternet.com wrote:
You may just not be getting the messages; check the archives. I thought I was on moderation myself after one of my own posts failed to materialize after several hours, but after communicating with another subsriber to the list via an unspecified non-mailing-list-based method, it transpired that everyone else and their dog had already read it.
Yes, maybe you are right, too. (Last days I was getting some emails without order...) But, I think that it is also related to "Marry Christmas spam". I got at least couple of them and I may imagine how Internet traffic is raising these days... Or just WMF mail server has problems with network/system load because of the same reason?
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Or we could introduce a limit of 20 messages per person and month. That would force everyone to pick their fights (which is always a good advice, but rarely enforced), instead of allowing the list to degrade into a chat forum. Being able to post 20 messages a month is not censorship.
Although it's not enforceable as an official limit, I tend to think it's a good idea to limit one's mailing list postings to no more than the number of significant contributions to a Wikimedia project, where a "contribution" is something like writing one good paragraph of a Wikipedia article, uploading an image to Commons, etc. Just posted five messages to foundation-l? Time to find five useful non-meta things to do to make up for it!
-Mark
On 12/24/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Although it's not enforceable as an official limit, I tend to think it's a good idea to limit one's mailing list postings to no more than the number of significant contributions to a Wikimedia project, where a "contribution" is something like writing one good paragraph of a Wikipedia article, uploading an image to Commons, etc. Just posted five messages to foundation-l? Time to find five useful non-meta things to do to make up for it!
Which implies that Jimmy, Mike Godwin etc. shouldn't say anything on foundation-l list.
On Dec 24, 2007 7:33 AM, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On 12/24/07, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Although it's not enforceable as an official limit, I tend to think it's a good idea to limit one's mailing list postings to no more than the number of significant contributions to a Wikimedia project, where a "contribution" is something like writing one good paragraph of a Wikipedia article, uploading an image to Commons, etc. Just posted five messages to foundation-l? Time to find five useful non-meta things to do to make up for it!
Which implies that Jimmy, Mike Godwin etc. shouldn't say anything on foundation-l list.
They both have made significant contributions to Wikipedia. Mike even edit wars on his own biography from time to time.
I have to say that I agree with Birgitte here. For me, Foundation-l has becoming incresasingly useless as a mailing list because it is so frequently dominated by people who seem to be very "bitter and mean-spirited" to the point that they are on the attack no matter what happens.
So ignore them, block them, ban them, etc. If there are people whose mean-spiritedness is preventing us from conducting legitimate business here, or is preventing this list from being a useful resource, those people should be removed from it. It is not anybody's duty or responsibility to "put up" with people who are unhelpful, unproductive, and even counter-productive. This list has a purpose and "empowering trolls" or "dealing with trolls" is not that purpose.
I am unsure what we should do about foundation-l. It has become a sewer. It is difficult to balance our very strong desire for an unmoderated forum where people can feel comfortable making strong criticisms (nothing wrong with that!) with a forum where trolls are exhausting a lot of good people and spreading misinformation due to the inability of others to keep up with the sheer volume of malice.
I don't see why this list has to be "unmoderated". None of the wikis are unmoderated, and some of them are very strictly moderated. Set rules: legitimate users will follow them, trolls will not. This is not to say that the rules need to be complicated, or strict, etc. The rules may not even need to be explicit, set some moderators who have good judgement and tell them that they will "know it when they see it". Hell, it works for pornography in the US, it will work for trolls on the mailinglist.
I would also submit a small disagreement that this list has become a "sewer", but it's effectiveness has certainly been limited unnecessarily.
--Andrew Whitworth
Foundation-l, the mailing list nobody can edit for the encyclopedia everyone can?
If we're going to get on the topic of censoring mailing lists, we should deal with Wiki-en-l first, THEN foundation-l. Most of what I see on foundation-l is constructive criticism, and inspired debate with a few snide remarks, not straight trolling attempts. Moderating this list would serve the effect of censoring legitimate criticism by allowing it to be subjected to a "judgment call" by the list moderators before being approved. You want to see a REAL cesspool, spend some time at Wiki-en-l; after that this list smells like roses.
-Dan On Dec 21, 2007, at 12:25 PM, Andrew Whitworth wrote:
I have to say that I agree with Birgitte here. For me, Foundation- l has becoming incresasingly useless as a mailing list because it is so frequently dominated by people who seem to be very "bitter and mean-spirited" to the point that they are on the attack no matter what happens.
So ignore them, block them, ban them, etc. If there are people whose mean-spiritedness is preventing us from conducting legitimate business here, or is preventing this list from being a useful resource, those people should be removed from it. It is not anybody's duty or responsibility to "put up" with people who are unhelpful, unproductive, and even counter-productive. This list has a purpose and "empowering trolls" or "dealing with trolls" is not that purpose.
I am unsure what we should do about foundation-l. It has become a sewer. It is difficult to balance our very strong desire for an unmoderated forum where people can feel comfortable making strong criticisms (nothing wrong with that!) with a forum where trolls are exhausting a lot of good people and spreading misinformation due to the inability of others to keep up with the sheer volume of malice.
I don't see why this list has to be "unmoderated". None of the wikis are unmoderated, and some of them are very strictly moderated. Set rules: legitimate users will follow them, trolls will not. This is not to say that the rules need to be complicated, or strict, etc. The rules may not even need to be explicit, set some moderators who have good judgement and tell them that they will "know it when they see it". Hell, it works for pornography in the US, it will work for trolls on the mailinglist.
I would also submit a small disagreement that this list has become a "sewer", but it's effectiveness has certainly been limited unnecessarily.
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
So true, so true.
Chad H.
On Dec 21, 2007 12:32 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Foundation-l, the mailing list nobody can edit for the encyclopedia everyone can?
If we're going to get on the topic of censoring mailing lists, we should deal with Wiki-en-l first, THEN foundation-l. Most of what I see on foundation-l is constructive criticism, and inspired debate with a few snide remarks, not straight trolling attempts. Moderating this list would serve the effect of censoring legitimate criticism by allowing it to be subjected to a "judgment call" by the list moderators before being approved. You want to see a REAL cesspool, spend some time at Wiki-en-l; after that this list smells like roses.
-Dan
On Dec 21, 2007, at 12:25 PM, Andrew Whitworth wrote:
I have to say that I agree with Birgitte here. For me, Foundation- l has becoming incresasingly useless as a mailing list because it is so frequently dominated by people who seem to be very "bitter and mean-spirited" to the point that they are on the attack no matter what happens.
So ignore them, block them, ban them, etc. If there are people whose mean-spiritedness is preventing us from conducting legitimate business here, or is preventing this list from being a useful resource, those people should be removed from it. It is not anybody's duty or responsibility to "put up" with people who are unhelpful, unproductive, and even counter-productive. This list has a purpose and "empowering trolls" or "dealing with trolls" is not that purpose.
I am unsure what we should do about foundation-l. It has become a sewer. It is difficult to balance our very strong desire for an unmoderated forum where people can feel comfortable making strong criticisms (nothing wrong with that!) with a forum where trolls are exhausting a lot of good people and spreading misinformation due to the inability of others to keep up with the sheer volume of malice.
I don't see why this list has to be "unmoderated". None of the wikis are unmoderated, and some of them are very strictly moderated. Set rules: legitimate users will follow them, trolls will not. This is not to say that the rules need to be complicated, or strict, etc. The rules may not even need to be explicit, set some moderators who have good judgement and tell them that they will "know it when they see it". Hell, it works for pornography in the US, it will work for trolls on the mailinglist.
I would also submit a small disagreement that this list has become a "sewer", but it's effectiveness has certainly been limited unnecessarily.
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Hoi Dan, Foundation-l the mailing list about what transcends individual projects of the Wikimedia Foundation. To start with you are apparently at the wrong address. There is a specific list for the English language Wikipedia, there is a list for what brings the Wikipedias together..
Foundation-l is not a refuge for what ails other lists. Now I am not suggesting that you should be moderated, but I do insist that foundation-l is not to be associated with encyclopaedias. That is not what this list is about. By the way there is no need to moderate wiktionary-l .. :)
When you equate "legitimate criticism" with Wikipedia, arbitration cabals, all people who "criticise" on this list need to appreciate that they are wrong. Wrong, because this is not what this list is there for.
Thanks, GerardM
On Dec 21, 2007 6:32 PM, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
Foundation-l, the mailing list nobody can edit for the encyclopedia everyone can?
If we're going to get on the topic of censoring mailing lists, we should deal with Wiki-en-l first, THEN foundation-l. Most of what I see on foundation-l is constructive criticism, and inspired debate with a few snide remarks, not straight trolling attempts. Moderating this list would serve the effect of censoring legitimate criticism by allowing it to be subjected to a "judgment call" by the list moderators before being approved. You want to see a REAL cesspool, spend some time at Wiki-en-l; after that this list smells like roses.
-Dan On Dec 21, 2007, at 12:25 PM, Andrew Whitworth wrote:
I have to say that I agree with Birgitte here. For me, Foundation- l has becoming incresasingly useless as a mailing list because it is so frequently dominated by people who seem to be very "bitter and mean-spirited" to the point that they are on the attack no matter what happens.
So ignore them, block them, ban them, etc. If there are people whose mean-spiritedness is preventing us from conducting legitimate business here, or is preventing this list from being a useful resource, those people should be removed from it. It is not anybody's duty or responsibility to "put up" with people who are unhelpful, unproductive, and even counter-productive. This list has a purpose and "empowering trolls" or "dealing with trolls" is not that purpose.
I am unsure what we should do about foundation-l. It has become a sewer. It is difficult to balance our very strong desire for an unmoderated forum where people can feel comfortable making strong criticisms (nothing wrong with that!) with a forum where trolls are exhausting a lot of good people and spreading misinformation due to the inability of others to keep up with the sheer volume of malice.
I don't see why this list has to be "unmoderated". None of the wikis are unmoderated, and some of them are very strictly moderated. Set rules: legitimate users will follow them, trolls will not. This is not to say that the rules need to be complicated, or strict, etc. The rules may not even need to be explicit, set some moderators who have good judgement and tell them that they will "know it when they see it". Hell, it works for pornography in the US, it will work for trolls on the mailinglist.
I would also submit a small disagreement that this list has become a "sewer", but it's effectiveness has certainly been limited unnecessarily.
--Andrew Whitworth
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
Foundation-l, the mailing list nobody can edit for the encyclopedia everyone can?
I'm not sure what encyclopedia (or *cough* other Wikimedia project) you're editing, but all the ones I edit are /more/ moderated than this and other lists. In fact, I think that's what they gave you and I the admin buttons for.
If we're going to get on the topic of censoring mailing lists, we should deal with Wiki-en-l first, THEN foundation-l.
I'm sorry, but asking for civility and an end to mean-spirited or combative behavior is not the same as "censoring." I would expect a hardened administrator like you to be immune from such irrational leaps of logic and not create these strawmen. There shouldn't even be a question here. There is a huge portion of the community that is severely turned off to this list and other discussions at this level because of net-negative personalities that are tolerated, and we ought to try to fix that.
Dominic
Dmcedvit:
There's a difference between putting people on moderation, and moderating the entire list. I support the former, no problem. I wholeheartedly oppose the latter. As for strawmen, I believe the real strawman is automatically equating moderation to "asking for civility": they are not the same thing. If we ask for civility and it is not responded to, we can then moderate individuals. That's only fair. To shoot first and ask questions later is what people criticize about "hardened administrators", whatever that means.
-Dan On Dec 21, 2007, at 1:00 PM, Dmcdevit wrote:
Dan Rosenthal wrote:
Foundation-l, the mailing list nobody can edit for the encyclopedia everyone can?
I'm not sure what encyclopedia (or *cough* other Wikimedia project) you're editing, but all the ones I edit are /more/ moderated than this and other lists. In fact, I think that's what they gave you and I the admin buttons for.
If we're going to get on the topic of censoring mailing lists, we should deal with Wiki-en-l first, THEN foundation-l.
I'm sorry, but asking for civility and an end to mean-spirited or combative behavior is not the same as "censoring." I would expect a hardened administrator like you to be immune from such irrational leaps of logic and not create these strawmen. There shouldn't even be a question here. There is a huge portion of the community that is severely turned off to this list and other discussions at this level because of net-negative personalities that are tolerated, and we ought to try to fix that.
Dominic
foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
On 21/12/2007, Dan Rosenthal swatjester@gmail.com wrote:
If we're going to get on the topic of censoring mailing lists, we should deal with Wiki-en-l first, THEN foundation-l.
Michael Bimmler and I send each other emails of commiseration quite a bit. We've been applying the Fireaxe of Loving Grace a fair bit on wikien-l, and it's been almost readable of late, with almost 30% non-stupid posts on some days. There's a fair way to go, though, and I'm frequently tempted to just recommend the list be taken out and shot as a net negative. I believe three or four of the listed moderators of wikien-l still bother reading the list ...
- d.
On 22/12/2007, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I am unsure what we should do about foundation-l. It has become a sewer. It is difficult to balance our very strong desire for an unmoderated forum where people can feel comfortable making strong criticisms (nothing wrong with that!) with a forum where trolls are exhausting a lot of good people and spreading misinformation due to the inability of others to keep up with the sheer volume of malice.
I strongly agree that something needs to change, but I am not sure what.
The requirements to keep up with foundation-l are too high for most Wikimedians to accept. foundation-l is frequently too irrelevant, too esoteric, too flame-filled, to expect people who are motivated to spend most of their wikimedia-time creating content in the projects, to play along. This is a problem when it seems that foundation-l is the main way (??) that the Board gauges "community reaction".
This is a bit of a broader issue, but think about the GFDL/CC-BY-SA licensing issue. Discussion about it has more or less died out now but there are still many unresolved issues. It is something that needs to continue to be discussed.
There are a few things that could happen. 1) Split foundation-l into several mailing lists for different purposes. copyright-l would be a good start. board2community-l may be another. :) 2) Introduce other mediums of communication, to complement or replace mailing lists, such as message boards (forums) or blogs. Forums have the ability to "pin" important topics at the top which could be useful, and also offer an ability to offer feedback on a posts' relevance *without actually replying to the post*. Mailing lists lack this... 3) Introduce more guidelines about what's appropriate in terms of what community members can "demand" from WMF Board and staff, where the "openness" limits lie. I don't think staff should be subject to arbitrary interrogation from mailing lists, maybe with some exception for the ED. Or if the ED is required to write monthly-or-so reports to the mailing list, that could be a good alternative to any interrogation.
cheers Brianna user:pfctdayelise
On 12/22/07, Brianna Laugher brianna.laugher@gmail.com wrote:
- Split foundation-l into several mailing lists for different
purposes. copyright-l would be a good start. board2community-l may be another. :)
I completely agree with this proposal. If traffic is increased it is not bad, but good. So, instead of limiting active participants in amount of emails, better idea is to split lists by their functions.
I agree with your proposal from a couple of months ago to split the list firstly to WMF-only and community-only.
And about problematic users on the list: We should make explicit rules, vote for them and give to list admins right to impose them in the similar way as admins are imposing blocking on wikis: one day, two days, one week etc.
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org