Tim Starling wrote:
On 25/06/18 07:46, MZMcBride wrote:
Wikimedia Foundation Inc. employees have blocked the ability of new users to report bugs or file feature requests or even read the issue tracker. But yes, please focus on me calling Andre a troll for resetting the priority of https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T197550. My single comment ("andre__: Such a troll.") is clearly what contributes to an unwelcoming environment for contributors, not blocking them from reading the site and demanding that they be vetted first. Great work, all.
MZMcBride, a few years ago, a number of people were thoroughly fed up with your behaviour in technical communication spaces, and there was serious discussion of banning you. I spoke in your favour at that time because, when I talked to you 1:1 about the issues, you seemed contrite and willing to improve yourself.
We wouldn't accept this type of unsubstantiated and unsourced bad-mouthing on the English Wikipedia, so I'm confused why you think we would accept it here. If "a number of people" were fed up, please provide some names and links. I try to improve myself daily.
I know you're passionate, and we need passionate people, but you have to express your views in a civil manner. There's no easy solution to T197550. We need to welcome newcomers but we also need to prevent vandalism. Phabricator doesn't offer as many tools for this as MediaWiki. We're all aware that it's not ideal, and while you're ranting about civility, smart people are trying to find better compromises.
Oh, come on, Tim. "Smart people" are sending threatening e-mails about an IRC message to users behind a shared account. That's your better compromise? I don't really care about the priority of any given task in Phabricator Maniphest and I rarely touch the field. I do care when we block all new users from the main entry-point to file issues or feature requests with an awful error message in the name of "temporary" security.
For what it's worth, instead of telling new users to try an "incognito browser window", which is a pretty obscure tactic, they could be asked to e-mail their bug report, task comment, or feature request to whichever Wikimedia Foundation Inc. staffer created this problem for them and that staffer could then make the necessary changes to Phabricator Maniphest. There are over 300 full-time employees working for Wikimedia Foundation Inc. Surely one of them is available to handle the fallout of this hasty decision to lock down Phabricator.
MZMcBride