Tomasz Wegrzanowski wrote:
On 5/20/06, Aleksy Schubert <alx(a)cs.ru.nl>
wrote:
Hello all,
Recently it turned out on the Polish Wikipedia that somebody created
a secret mailing list for Polish Wikipedia administrators. Why I say
the list was secret?
* the information on it was not presented anywhere on the usual
public Wikipedia fora,
* the information on the fact that this list is planned has
not been announced anywhere,
* the list was private (only admins could read it and
had access to its archives),
* the information about the list leaked on some of the Wikipedia
talk pages.
There was a hot dispute concerning the problem on the official
Polish Wikipedia mailing list. However, there was no clear result.
A concrete proposal to discuss the issue in a narrow circle and achieve
a compromise of some kind made by [[:pl:User:Ency]] was more or less
ignored by the creators and supporters of the list.
My concern with regard to the issue is that this kind of initiative
spoils to high extent the open character of the Wikipedia community and
therefore the mailing list should be closed or the admins should be
obliged to sign off from the list. Another possibility is to just make
the list open for the whole community in some way. However, the
effective result of the discussion on the Polish Wikipedia mailing list
(that means that the list still exists) stays in contradiction with my
understanding of the openness of the Wikipedia projects. That's why I
raise this issue here in hope that I'll hear something that will allow
me to better understand the situation and act appropriately.
I think this is rather inaccurate description.
This is a disadvantage of keeping
things secret. Even though
one may strongly strive in good will to give an adequate account
one goes astray because the facts are *kept secret*.
A private list got started and the Wikipedians
"trusted" by the
list's creators got invited to participate (mostly sysops,
The first part of
the sentence is an undeniable truth. The second
is, however, a pure source of unverifiable myths, legends, and
speculations. As the list is private, you can say whatever
you want about their users and no one outside the list will
be able to verify that. I can only try to infer that
* probably all the sysops were there,
* some of the sysops are there,
* some of the sysops signed off from there,
* some of the users who could've been perceived by the list creators
as "trusted" behave like they were not included in the list,
* no person without the sysop flag confirmed publicly her/his being on
the list.
because everyone who hasn't been behaving like a
troll and
wants to be one easily gets a flag).
This is a bit inadequate on your side. You
perfectly know that
except from troll-like users several POV-pushers were
denied the flag (and mixing them with trolls is unfair).
You also perfectly know that a few respectable users had problems
with getting the sysop flag in the past.
The list has been advertised many times on
#wikipedia-pl,
so it's not really "secret".
You also know the strength of this kind
of advert (as opposed
to the advert on the Message board or in the Village pump). I keep
on reading the channel every day and I didn't get to
know about that before the issue broke out on the mailing
list.
The new list was started was not because the
discussions
that take place there require secrecy, but simply
because the open mailing list became so full of trolls
and flamewars that it's not very useful for discussions,
and some people still like the "mailing list" format.
So no problem with
publishing the archives of the list?
Oh, and I've got the invitation, but I'm not
on the list.
Bests,
Alx-pl
--
De toekomst is onzeker en het einde is altijd nabij
- Roadhouse Blues, The Doors