-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Anthony wrote:
On 8/13/07, Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/13/07, Anthony wikitech@inbox.org wrote:
That's completely obnoxious. Disagreeing with one of the moderators is not trolling.
Probably not, but at this point the decision is effectively irreversible, barring a *really* big backlash (which I very much doubt we'll be seeing). Quite a lot of work has been done on it and most people seem to think it's a great idea.
Fair enough, I still don't think that's a valid reason to put me on moderation or to call me a troll.
If I'm not permitted to question this decision (to implement SUL) on this mailing list, and a moderator tells me so, then I will abide by that. There's no need to put me on moderation to accomplish that.
You're welcome to question decisions, but I'd rather that discussions remain relatively civil and productive.
Having seen plenty of foundation-l threads involving you, and seeing this thread go the same direction -- fast pace, high tempers, strong words, and not really productive for anybody -- I figured it would help to impose a little cool-down period.
FWIW, I think there will be a really big backlash, and from what I've heard the whole reason it's taken over 3 years to implement is precisely because a lot of people don't think it's a great idea.
It's taken a long time because there have been other priorities, and the original spec was for a single massive site-wide merging process which had to do everyone at once, which meant it had to be perfect ahead of time.
We've gotten a lot of other issues sorted out over the last year, and I've respecced the merge process to work on an opt-in basis per-username which allows a graceful beta period for more feedback as we refine the process.
Of course there are legitimate differences of opinion about what's the best way to set up a global account system, but ultimately we had to pick one and stick to it. The one that's been picked was formalizing and codifying the existing tradition that people use the same username on multiple wikis -- which is by far the simplest thing when dealing with an integrated site family like this, where for instance we point people at Commons or Meta all the time.
A few people will be bitten, yes, but we'll all just have to live with it, just as we'd have to live with the much greater constant pain of having a wildly inconsistent username space if we didn't do this.
- -- brion vibber (brion @ wikimedia.org)