Hello, Please refrain from name calling, the CoC has received some reports about users being offended by you calling them trolls. While those comments might not have been malicious they are not constructive and do not contribute to a welcoming environment for contributors.
Best
-- This email was sent by TechConductCommittee to MZMcBride by the "Email this user" function at MediaWiki. If you reply to this email, your email will be sent directly to the original sender, revealing your email address to them.
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.
A pseudo-focus on "civility" while you take a hard-line and skeptical view toward outsiders. Maybe these people are auditioning for roles in the Trump Administration. :-)
I'm mostly forwarding this garbage here so that there's some better and more appropriate context when, in a few months, someone says "well, the code of conduct committee has dealt with dozens of incidents! Clearly it's necessary!" The people pushing this campaign for more bureaucracy have repeatedly declined to provide specifics about incidents because it's pretty obvious that nobody would take them seriously (and rightfully!) if there were a clearer understanding of what they're actually doing.
Best!
MZMcBride
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.
Although I think you've improved since then, I don't think you've improved so far that you can now glibly reject a recommendation from the Code of Conduct committee.
If you ask me, yes it is better to temporarily block newcomers than expose them to an environment where staff members are called "trolls". You can unblock but you cannot unoffend. The damage caused by toxicity is not reversible.
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.
-- Tim Starling
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
The lack of transparency of TCC actions and assessment processes is troubling. TCC was supposed to be a means to handle serious misuse or harassment, not to use steel boots to stamp out all "non-positivity".
Trivial cases like this should best be handled firstly by off project grown-up mediation, rather than TCC warnings for which the next step may be a global ban.
Honestly, the TCC's actions have looked so authoritarian to my eyes, I fear I am adding evidence to a case for a permanent ban of my account by writing non-positive words here. The TCC is guilty of creating a hostile environment that appears unwelcoming and threatens volunteers in all "technical spaces".
Fae
On Sun, 24 Jun 2018, 22:46 MZMcBride, z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hello, Please refrain from name calling, the CoC has received some reports about users being offended by you calling them trolls. While those comments might not have been malicious they are not constructive and do not contribute to a welcoming environment for contributors.
Best
-- This email was sent by TechConductCommittee to MZMcBride by the "Email this user" function at MediaWiki. If you reply to this email, your email will be sent directly to the original sender, revealing your email address to them.
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.
A pseudo-focus on "civility" while you take a hard-line and skeptical view toward outsiders. Maybe these people are auditioning for roles in the Trump Administration. :-)
I'm mostly forwarding this garbage here so that there's some better and more appropriate context when, in a few months, someone says "well, the code of conduct committee has dealt with dozens of incidents! Clearly it's necessary!" The people pushing this campaign for more bureaucracy have repeatedly declined to provide specifics about incidents because it's pretty obvious that nobody would take them seriously (and rightfully!) if there were a clearer understanding of what they're actually doing.
Best!
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
@Nemo: It could be that the priority change was not seen as aggressive, and probably it was not initially as we have the "be bold" tradition. However, that changes as the issue heats up and becomes an edit war. In this case it didn't get to that point (less than 3 reverts, although the reverts might be perceived more strongly in Phabricator, and because the person doing them had a position of power). Linguistically it is also challenging because maybe the person using the word "troll" was not aware that it could have been interpreted as "assuming bad faith". Even if an act is qualified as "troll" there is some judgement about something that the author of the action might have not intended.
It is not fair to put all the blame on WMF employees, they might be part of the issue, but every coin has two sides. WMF employees could improve their openness with the frustration they get from the community, and also the community should be more willing to be constructive and understanding. Probably neither the WMF employees nor the community is getting the help needed to collaborate better, but whose role is to provide it?
I agree that normally the weakest suffer the most, and that somebody (again, who?) should take the lead in this case to explain to the contributor what happened and offer an apology.
@Fae: indeed friendly mediation seems more appropriate in this case, but again, by who? The people involved in this case didn't have anywhere to go, so I find it understandable that they resort to their only available option right now.
If the TCC wants to create a friendly environment, they cannot tackle unfriendliness in an unfriendly way (unless there are no other options, or the gravity of the situation requires so).
I am not worried about the lack of transparency of the TCC, because actually it should be done that way to protect its participants (cfr. Chatham House Rule), but of course they could document how they reached difficult decisions. It could be useful to assess future cases.
Micru
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 11:19 AM Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
The lack of transparency of TCC actions and assessment processes is troubling. TCC was supposed to be a means to handle serious misuse or harassment, not to use steel boots to stamp out all "non-positivity".
Trivial cases like this should best be handled firstly by off project grown-up mediation, rather than TCC warnings for which the next step may be a global ban.
Honestly, the TCC's actions have looked so authoritarian to my eyes, I fear I am adding evidence to a case for a permanent ban of my account by writing non-positive words here. The TCC is guilty of creating a hostile environment that appears unwelcoming and threatens volunteers in all "technical spaces".
Fae
On Sun, 24 Jun 2018, 22:46 MZMcBride, z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hello, Please refrain from name calling, the CoC has received some reports
about
users being offended by you calling them trolls. While those comments might not have been malicious they are not constructive and do not contribute to a welcoming environment for contributors.
Best
-- This email was sent by TechConductCommittee to MZMcBride by the "Email this user" function at MediaWiki. If you reply to this email, your email will be sent directly to the original sender, revealing your email address to them.
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.
A pseudo-focus on "civility" while you take a hard-line and skeptical
view
toward outsiders. Maybe these people are auditioning for roles in the Trump Administration. :-)
I'm mostly forwarding this garbage here so that there's some better and more appropriate context when, in a few months, someone says "well, the code of conduct committee has dealt with dozens of incidents! Clearly
it's
necessary!" The people pushing this campaign for more bureaucracy have repeatedly declined to provide specifics about incidents because it's pretty obvious that nobody would take them seriously (and rightfully!) if there were a clearer understanding of what they're actually doing.
Best!
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
If you are going to quote Chatham House Rule, then look it up first please. The secretive behaviour of the TCC, along with the habit of choosing to suppress evidence or answer questions, to the stage where WMF employees do not want to explain what they read with their own eyes for fear of falling foul of extream interpretations of the CoC, even when originally the incident was a public published record, is way more paranoid than applying CHR.
The top level stated values of our community and the WMF are explicitly to remain as open and transparent as possible. Recent incidents involving the TCC and the apparent worsening relationships between unpaid volunteers and WMF contractors/employees demonstrate a failure to meet those ethical and good governance considerations. Hiding behind an anonymous email address is merely the most obvious anti-transparency measure. You would think that TCC members are worried about putting their names against their own Committee's actions.
"At a meeting held under the Chatham House Rule, anyone who comes to the meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any comment. It is designed to increase openness of discussion." See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule
Fae (from a mobile phone)
On Mon, 25 Jun 2018, 11:04 David Cuenca Tudela, dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
@Nemo: It could be that the priority change was not seen as aggressive, and probably it was not initially as we have the "be bold" tradition. However, that changes as the issue heats up and becomes an edit war. In this case it didn't get to that point (less than 3 reverts, although the reverts might be perceived more strongly in Phabricator, and because the person doing them had a position of power). Linguistically it is also challenging because maybe the person using the word "troll" was not aware that it could have been interpreted as "assuming bad faith". Even if an act is qualified as "troll" there is some judgement about something that the author of the action might have not intended.
It is not fair to put all the blame on WMF employees, they might be part of the issue, but every coin has two sides. WMF employees could improve their openness with the frustration they get from the community, and also the community should be more willing to be constructive and understanding. Probably neither the WMF employees nor the community is getting the help needed to collaborate better, but whose role is to provide it?
I agree that normally the weakest suffer the most, and that somebody (again, who?) should take the lead in this case to explain to the contributor what happened and offer an apology.
@Fae: indeed friendly mediation seems more appropriate in this case, but again, by who? The people involved in this case didn't have anywhere to go, so I find it understandable that they resort to their only available option right now.
If the TCC wants to create a friendly environment, they cannot tackle unfriendliness in an unfriendly way (unless there are no other options, or the gravity of the situation requires so).
I am not worried about the lack of transparency of the TCC, because actually it should be done that way to protect its participants (cfr. Chatham House Rule), but of course they could document how they reached difficult decisions. It could be useful to assess future cases.
Micru
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 11:19 AM Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
The lack of transparency of TCC actions and assessment processes is troubling. TCC was supposed to be a means to handle serious misuse or harassment, not to use steel boots to stamp out all "non-positivity".
Trivial cases like this should best be handled firstly by off project grown-up mediation, rather than TCC warnings for which the next step may
be
a global ban.
Honestly, the TCC's actions have looked so authoritarian to my eyes, I
fear
I am adding evidence to a case for a permanent ban of my account by
writing
non-positive words here. The TCC is guilty of creating a hostile environment that appears unwelcoming and threatens volunteers in all "technical spaces".
Fae
On Sun, 24 Jun 2018, 22:46 MZMcBride, z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hello, Please refrain from name calling, the CoC has received some reports
about
users being offended by you calling them trolls. While those comments might not have been malicious they are not constructive and do not contribute to a welcoming environment for contributors.
Best
-- This email was sent by TechConductCommittee to MZMcBride by the "Email this user" function at MediaWiki. If you reply to this email, your
will be sent directly to the original sender, revealing your email address to them.
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.
A pseudo-focus on "civility" while you take a hard-line and skeptical
view
toward outsiders. Maybe these people are auditioning for roles in the Trump Administration. :-)
I'm mostly forwarding this garbage here so that there's some better and more appropriate context when, in a few months, someone says "well, the code of conduct committee has dealt with dozens of incidents! Clearly
it's
necessary!" The people pushing this campaign for more bureaucracy have repeatedly declined to provide specifics about incidents because it's pretty obvious that nobody would take them seriously (and rightfully!)
if
there were a clearer understanding of what they're actually doing.
Best!
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Etiamsi omnes, ego non _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
I do not have enough information about the events that you are talking about, so I cannot form a complete picture with the limited information that you offer. The nature of the job of the TCC seems to suggest that they should operate with discretion and confidentiality, and answer questions only to the people involved in the issues. They do not have to explain whatever they read to any outside party, because even with all the values of openness and transparency, the privacy of the involved parties should be guaranteed. I mentioned the CHR because it offers a way to share information from meetings if needed, not to say that all information should be shared, because that is not the case.
I do not consider the operation of a common account as hiding, but rather as a way to distribute the pressure that comes from external parties. Considering the negative language that you use in your communication I find it very appropriate.
Micru (also from mobile)
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 4:34 PM Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
If you are going to quote Chatham House Rule, then look it up first please. The secretive behaviour of the TCC, along with the habit of choosing to suppress evidence or answer questions, to the stage where WMF employees do not want to explain what they read with their own eyes for fear of falling foul of extream interpretations of the CoC, even when originally the incident was a public published record, is way more paranoid than applying CHR.
The top level stated values of our community and the WMF are explicitly to remain as open and transparent as possible. Recent incidents involving the TCC and the apparent worsening relationships between unpaid volunteers and WMF contractors/employees demonstrate a failure to meet those ethical and good governance considerations. Hiding behind an anonymous email address is merely the most obvious anti-transparency measure. You would think that TCC members are worried about putting their names against their own Committee's actions.
"At a meeting held under the Chatham House Rule, anyone who comes to the meeting is free to use information from the discussion, but is not allowed to reveal who made any comment. It is designed to increase openness of discussion." See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_House_Rule
Fae (from a mobile phone)
On Mon, 25 Jun 2018, 11:04 David Cuenca Tudela, dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
@Nemo: It could be that the priority change was not seen as aggressive,
and
probably it was not initially as we have the "be bold" tradition.
However,
that changes as the issue heats up and becomes an edit war. In this case
it
didn't get to that point (less than 3 reverts, although the reverts might be perceived more strongly in Phabricator, and because the person doing them had a position of power). Linguistically it is also challenging because maybe the person using the word "troll" was not aware that it
could
have been interpreted as "assuming bad faith". Even if an act is
qualified
as "troll" there is some judgement about something that the author of the action might have not intended.
It is not fair to put all the blame on WMF employees, they might be part
of
the issue, but every coin has two sides. WMF employees could improve
their
openness with the frustration they get from the community, and also the community should be more willing to be constructive and understanding. Probably neither the WMF employees nor the community is getting the help needed to collaborate better, but whose role is to provide it?
I agree that normally the weakest suffer the most, and that somebody (again, who?) should take the lead in this case to explain to the contributor what happened and offer an apology.
@Fae: indeed friendly mediation seems more appropriate in this case, but again, by who? The people involved in this case didn't have anywhere to
go,
so I find it understandable that they resort to their only available
option
right now.
If the TCC wants to create a friendly environment, they cannot tackle unfriendliness in an unfriendly way (unless there are no other options,
or
the gravity of the situation requires so).
I am not worried about the lack of transparency of the TCC, because actually it should be done that way to protect its participants (cfr. Chatham House Rule), but of course they could document how they reached difficult decisions. It could be useful to assess future cases.
Micru
On Mon, Jun 25, 2018 at 11:19 AM Fæ faewik@gmail.com wrote:
The lack of transparency of TCC actions and assessment processes is troubling. TCC was supposed to be a means to handle serious misuse or harassment, not to use steel boots to stamp out all "non-positivity".
Trivial cases like this should best be handled firstly by off project grown-up mediation, rather than TCC warnings for which the next step
may
be
a global ban.
Honestly, the TCC's actions have looked so authoritarian to my eyes, I
fear
I am adding evidence to a case for a permanent ban of my account by
writing
non-positive words here. The TCC is guilty of creating a hostile environment that appears unwelcoming and threatens volunteers in all "technical spaces".
Fae
On Sun, 24 Jun 2018, 22:46 MZMcBride, z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Hello, Please refrain from name calling, the CoC has received some reports
about
users being offended by you calling them trolls. While those
comments
might not have been malicious they are not constructive and do not contribute to a welcoming environment for contributors.
Best
-- This email was sent by TechConductCommittee to MZMcBride by the
this user" function at MediaWiki. If you reply to this email, your
will be sent directly to the original sender, revealing your email address to them.
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.
A pseudo-focus on "civility" while you take a hard-line and skeptical
view
toward outsiders. Maybe these people are auditioning for roles in the Trump Administration. :-)
I'm mostly forwarding this garbage here so that there's some better
and
more appropriate context when, in a few months, someone says "well,
the
code of conduct committee has dealt with dozens of incidents! Clearly
it's
necessary!" The people pushing this campaign for more bureaucracy
have
repeatedly declined to provide specifics about incidents because it's pretty obvious that nobody would take them seriously (and
rightfully!)
if
there were a clearer understanding of what they're actually doing.
Best!
MZMcBride
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
-- Etiamsi omnes, ego non _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org