What is your plan to clean up the mess you made?
I need to call you out on this MZ. This is an incredibly rude way to phrase this.
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
- Ryan
Ryan Lane wrote:
What is your plan to clean up the mess you made?
I need to call you out on this MZ. This is an incredibly rude way to phrase this.
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
What would have been a politer way to phrase the question? I originally wrote "when are you going to clean up the mess you made?", but I rewrote it.
The answer can be as simple as "apologize and move on." It's a little unclear to me what the extent of the damage is, but I don't think it's unreasonable if someone actively breaks something to expect them to deal with (or at least mitigate) the consequences, particularly if it's within their power to do so. I hit this issue at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Deprecating_inline_styles before it was mentioned on the mailing list. I read Daniel's reply as "shit happens" (which is a perfectly acceptable response sometimes). But given the open editing nature of the sites primarily affected and the fact that the sites track external link usage, I'm not sure it's out-of-line to suggest that the person (or people) who made the mess of the links clean it up. If it was out-of-line, I apologize.
Regarding an acceptable behavior policy, what did you have in mind?
MZMcBride
On Aug 16, 2012, at 7:18 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Ryan Lane wrote:
What is your plan to clean up the mess you made?
I need to call you out on this MZ. This is an incredibly rude way to phrase this.
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
What would have been a politer way to phrase the question? I originally wrote "when are you going to clean up the mess you made?", but I rewrote it.
"the mess you made".
Right there, in that phrase, you have aggressively indicated the following:
a) That you believe someone fucked up; b) That you think they're incompetent; c) That you think they're being lazy about it
None of that is helpful.
This communication style typically causes the exact opposite response from what you apparently want to have happen. I can't speak for others, but when someone talks to *me* this way, I start tuning them out.
Honey = flies.
--- Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
This is (hopefully) a community. When somebody fucks something up, they own up to it and somebody fixes it (sometimes the person who did it fixes it, sometimes somebody else). The proper way to phrase it would have been "So how can we go about fixing this?". By saying that you're not putting one person on the spot.
As far as an acceptable policy, how about just don't be a dickhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_be_a_dick ?
*--* *Tyler Romeo* Stevens Institute of Technology, Class of 2015 Major in Computer Science www.whizkidztech.com | tylerromeo@gmail.com
On Thu, Aug 16, 2012 at 10:26 PM, Brandon Harris bharris@wikimedia.orgwrote:
On Aug 16, 2012, at 7:18 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Ryan Lane wrote:
What is your plan to clean up the mess you made?
I need to call you out on this MZ. This is an incredibly rude way to phrase this.
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
What would have been a politer way to phrase the question? I originally wrote "when are you going to clean up the mess you made?", but I rewrote
it.
"the mess you made". Right there, in that phrase, you have aggressively indicated thefollowing:
a) That you believe someone fucked up; b) That you think they're incompetent; c) That you think they're being lazy about it None of that is helpful. This communication style typically causes the exact oppositeresponse from what you apparently want to have happen. I can't speak for others, but when someone talks to *me* this way, I start tuning them out.
Honey = flies.
Brandon Harris, Senior Designer, Wikimedia Foundation
Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate
Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
Tyler is right. So let's be positive and read that "what's your plan" as a generic you, a question to the audience/community, and get the issue fixed all together. I made my proposal/question/suggestion, it's the best I can.
Alternatively, of course we could as well spend our energies in throwing policy-bricks to each other; the designated place would probably be https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines (page created after some Internal-l quarrels I believe).
Nemo
Brandon Harris wrote:
On Aug 16, 2012, at 7:18 PM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
Ryan Lane wrote:
What is your plan to clean up the mess you made?
I need to call you out on this MZ. This is an incredibly rude way to phrase this.
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
What would have been a politer way to phrase the question? I originally wrote "when are you going to clean up the mess you made?", but I rewrote it.
"the mess you made".
Right there, in that phrase, you have aggressively indicated the following:
a) That you believe someone fucked up; b) That you think they're incompetent; c) That you think they're being lazy about it
I didn't intend to indicate most of that, of course. That said, system administrators are trusted to not break things and when they do, there's a moral obligation to make a good-faith effort to fix that which was broken by their actions. In this case, the moral culpability equation is enhanced by various factors previously discussed.
This communication style typically causes the exact opposite response from what you apparently want to have happen. I can't speak for others, but when someone talks to *me* this way, I start tuning them out.
Sure. But to me the tone is mostly irrelevant when you're considering a question of morality and ethics. If I break something, I feel obligated to make a good-faith effort to clean up the mess from my actions. I don't care if I'm the only one who noticed or if fifty people have noticed and are now shouting about it. I'll agree that we can't expect anyone to be able to fully rectify the ripple effects of breaking links like this. Perhaps others don't feel similarly about the level of moral culpability, and I can accept that, I just don't happen to agree that such behavior (making a mess and then simply walking away) is acceptable in this case.
(It may seem strange to discuss moral culpability in the context of something seemingly so trivial, but when you consider the weighty issues of manipulating a historical record and the level of access and trust required to do so, it makes sense, in my opinion.)
MZMcBride
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 07:05:24AM -0400, MZMcBride wrote:
"the mess you made".
Right there, in that phrase, you have aggressively indicated the following:
a) That you believe someone fucked up; b) That you think they're incompetent; c) That you think they're being lazy about it
I didn't intend to indicate most of that, of course. That said, system administrators are trusted to not break things and when they do, there's a moral obligation to make a good-faith effort to fix that which was broken by their actions. In this case, the moral culpability equation is enhanced by various factors previously discussed.
I've been silent because others seemed to handle it. But I can't anymore. Your initial mail was disturbing enough. Your complete lack of understanding of what multiple people are saying to you and the lack of an apology are even worse.
Your words hurt people, created a bad precedent of aggressive behavior and are counter-productive. Please stop this.
Regards, Faidon
On 17 August 2012 14:22, Faidon Liambotis faidon@wikimedia.org wrote:
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 07:05:24AM -0400, MZMcBride wrote:
"the mess you made".
Right there, in that phrase, you have aggressively indicated the
following:
I didn't intend to indicate most of that, of course. That said, system
I've been silent because others seemed to handle it. But I can't anymore. Your initial mail was disturbing enough. Your complete lack of understanding of what multiple people are saying to you and the lack of an apology are even worse.
Your words hurt people, created a bad precedent of aggressive behavior and are counter-productive. Please stop this.
I think it's important to keep things in perspective, and not to overreact.
What seems to have happened here, is that one action has broken many (all?) links to Mailman archives. That, in my book, is a mess. The question was, to that someone who made the mess, what his plan was to clean it up.
What should happen right now is *cleaning up the mess*. The more time is spent in butthurt and drama, the more *new* mess there is to clean up, once the old mess is cleaned up.
As far as I can see the easiest wat to go about this, is to dig up backups, salt the messages that originally needed to be "deleted" with spaces or *** or whatever (and add a note to the effect of "this was done because of *reason*), and then rebuild the archives so the permalinks are not broken anymore.
And then go in and fix whatever permalinks were fixed in the meantime.
This needs to happen fast. Once it's been done, there's all the time in the world for recriminations and drama and new guidelines and rules of conduct and whatnot.
Michel
I think it's important to keep things in perspective, and not to overreact.
If you were treated this way consistently by someone, and the community defended that person rather than calling them out on their poor behavior, would you continue to volunteer? Do you expect staff to continue working under the same conditions?
Best case you'll get is staff members that tune out the jerks. Of course, when the prevailing culture breeds this type of behavior, you'll get lots of staff tuning out lots of jerks. It isn't a viable community.
What seems to have happened here, is that one action has broken many (all?) links to Mailman archives. That, in my book, is a mess. The question was, to that someone who made the mess, what his plan was to clean it up.
Again with the phrasing. Cut it out.
You realize that Daniel is the only person who's deleted posts that has even given the slightest care to the fact that the links break, right? This happens all the time and until today we just broke the links.
If you really want to fix this problem, fix mailman, or write a sane system.
What should happen right now is *cleaning up the mess*. The more time is spent in butthurt and drama, the more *new* mess there is to clean up, once the old mess is cleaned up.
This thread is about the culture of aggressive behavior that we breed and accept. I'm tired of accepting it. As I called out MZ, I'm going to call you out too. Your behavior in this post is unacceptable.
As far as I can see the easiest wat to go about this, is to dig up backups, salt the messages that originally needed to be "deleted" with spaces or *** or whatever (and add a note to the effect of "this was done because of *reason*), and then rebuild the archives so the permalinks are not broken anymore.
And then go in and fix whatever permalinks were fixed in the meantime.
This needs to happen fast. Once it's been done, there's all the time in the world for recriminations and drama and new guidelines and rules of conduct and whatnot.
Why does this matter so much? This is like the 27637862487 time that links have been broken due to the exact same action. It isn't the end of the world. It would be ideal if it was repaired, but it's not a dire emergency.
- Ryan
Comments inline.
I think it's important to keep things in perspective, and not to
overreact.
If you were treated this way consistently by someone, and the community defended that person rather than calling them out on their poor behavior,
would
you continue to volunteer? Do you expect staff to continue working under
the
same conditions?
Best case you'll get is staff members that tune out the jerks. Of course,
when
the prevailing culture breeds this type of behavior, you'll get lots of
staff
tuning out lots of jerks. It isn't a viable community.
Before I begin with anything else, let me say that I am not defending anyone here. This message is meant to state an honest opinion on a matter that will likely affect all of us on this mailing list due to its nature, and the nature of this discussion.
With that in mind. I do agree that this entire thing has gotten out of perspective. While I don't agree with the actions that prompted this (sorry MZ I can't back you up here, although I do get where you're coming from), I also think that the fact that I even felt the need to write this email, or for that matter write this email in the careful fashion I am doing it in, shows that the situation has been blown out of perspective.
What seems to have happened here, is that one action has broken many (all?) links to Mailman archives. That, in my book, is a mess. The question was, to that someone who made the mess, what his plan was to
clean
it up.
Again with the phrasing. Cut it out.
Agreed. I'm not sure if anyone else read the previously linked to article on not being a dick, but it actually talks about this. Just because something is right, does not make it not dickish.
Quick Note: I've not been on the list for long enough to know whether or not MZ is consistantly a dick, but I tend to assume good faith in that he was probably just being a dick this time. Same thing with Michel, who for the most part did not post a dickish message and in fact I would go so far as to say that Michel probably would rather see this whole discussion done and overwith so we can get back to the good stuff than anything else. I could be wrong, but that was the impression his email gave me at least.
You realize that Daniel is the only person who's deleted posts that has
even
given the slightest care to the fact that the links break, right? This
happens
all the time and until today we just broke the links.
If you really want to fix this problem, fix mailman, or write a sane
system.
Although I agree that this is probably the direction we need to head, right now our problem is the links as they are. When your car breaks down you don't say, "If you really want to fix this problem, design a new car." Instead you go to the repair shop, get your car fixed so you can move on with your life, and if the car has been consistantly an issue for a while now, after it is fixed you go about designing a new car (assuming you have the skill set required to do so).
With that in mind. I agree that Daniel should be commended for his work. I also think that a mess was made and needs cleaned up. I ''also'' think that a better system needs to be implemented or designed to keep this from happening again. So in this regard I think everyone is right.
What should happen right now is *cleaning up the mess*. The more time is spent in butthurt and drama, the more *new* mess there is to clean up, once the old mess is cleaned up.
This thread is about the culture of aggressive behavior that we breed and accept. I'm tired of accepting it. As I called out MZ, I'm going to call
you
out too. Your behavior in this post is unacceptable.
I've no comment here. That is your personal opinion and I have no place intruding on it.
As far as I can see the easiest wat to go about this, is to dig up backups, salt the messages that originally needed to be "deleted" with spaces or *** or whatever (and add a note to the effect of "this was done because of *reason*), and then rebuild the archives so the permalinks are not broken anymore.
And then go in and fix whatever permalinks were fixed in the meantime.
This needs to happen fast. Once it's been done, there's all the time in the world for recriminations and drama and new guidelines and rules of conduct and whatnot.
Why does this matter so much? This is like the 27637862487 time that links
have
been broken due to the exact same action. It isn't the end of the world.
It
would be ideal if it was repaired, but it's not a dire emergency.
- Ryan
Agreed. The issue is not time senstative, although it would be better to be fixed sooner than later. Its more like you lost your favourite book than you lost your rent money. The world won't end from this problem, but it will make things inconvient for others down the line. Would a medium priority perhaps be a good compromise?
Also I think that Michel's solution to fix the problem is a good idea. I can't see any downsides to restoring a backup, blanking the messages, and then fixing the previously fixed links. With that in mind, I wouldn't blame Daniel if he didn't want to do it. I know I wouldn't want to go through that effort if I found myself caught in the middle of this.
Hopefully all of these issues can be solved in a relaxed, calm, and effective manner. I would like to re-iterate that this post is not meant to offend, blame, or condemn anyone. Furthermore this post is not meant to be dickish and I appologise ahead of time if it is, or anyone construes it as such. I am merely attempting to act as an uninterested third party, as I have no real interest in the mailing list archive, nor do I really know Daniel; Michel; or Ryan, who can help mediate the situation.
Sorry for the long email all.
Thank you, Derric Atzrott Computer Specialist Alizee Pathology
«This is like the 27637862487 time that links have been broken due to the exact same action.» I can bear hyperboles but this is a bit excessive, and looks like just another attempt to make this flame bigger: I hope the reality is closer to "two or three times in the past couple of years", and that in any case list owners have been warned. In fact, to compensate such hyperboles, I can't help noting that https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Remove_a_message_from_mailing_list_archive, which I already linked, exists since 2005 and that I assume it's not completely out of everyone's radar.
Adding to what has been said elsewhere in this thread, what needs fixing is this section: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Remove_a_message_from_mailing_list_archive#Considerations_for_requesters. We should have clear rules (you could just make that advice policy maybe?) and someone responsible for the process. It's obviously not fair to expect someone to pick up these tasks in their overtime, if one wants the process to be reliable (ie timely, policy-compliant and technically correct/non-disruptive).
Nemo
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 1:52 PM, Federico Leva (Nemo) nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
«This is like the 27637862487 time that links have been broken due to the exact same action.» I can bear hyperboles but this is a bit excessive, and looks like just another attempt to make this flame bigger: I hope the reality is closer to "two or three times in the past couple of years", and that in any case list owners have been warned. In fact, to compensate such hyperboles, I can't help noting that https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Remove_a_message_from_mailing_list_archive, which I already linked, exists since 2005 and that I assume it's not completely out of everyone's radar.
It was meant to be an exaggeration. It has happened a number of times in the past. It may happen again in the future. Mistakes happen and they are especially noticeable when it's ops that makes the mistake.
Adding to what has been said elsewhere in this thread, what needs fixing is this section: https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/view/Remove_a_message_from_mailing_list_archive#Considerations_for_requesters. We should have clear rules (you could just make that advice policy maybe?) and someone responsible for the process. It's obviously not fair to expect someone to pick up these tasks in their overtime, if one wants the process to be reliable (ie timely, policy-compliant and technically correct/non-disruptive).
Yep. As mentioned, we're going to make the procedures clearer to avoid this situation in the future.
Having someone responsible for the process is unlikely. I'd be surprised if anyone on the ops team works less than 60 hours a week. No matter who does this, it's going to be as a side-task to their normal responsibilities. That's unavoidable.
- Ryan
Ryan Lane wrote:
What seems to have happened here, is that one action has broken many (all?) links to Mailman archives. That, in my book, is a mess. The question was, to that someone who made the mess, what his plan was to clean it up.
Again with the phrasing. Cut it out.
Sincerely, I'm still a little unclear what phrasing you object to here. Just to be perfectly clear, it's the use of the word "mess," right? If so, I can make note not to use that word going forward on this list.
It may be a regional thing, but where I'm from, when a lot of things get broken, it's considered a mess. In this case, a lot of links were broken, so I described the situation as a mess. If there are better words to use to describe the situation or words you'd prefer I use, please let me know.
You realize that Daniel is the only person who's deleted posts that has even given the slightest care to the fact that the links break, right? This happens all the time and until today we just broke the links.
I don't believe this is true. As Guillaume said in the opening post, these links have been stable for years. Can you provide links or some other kind of evidence that the archive links breaking in this way is a regular occurrence? I know of one other time that this has happened, but you're suggesting that it happens frequently. I don't believe there is any evidence to support this claim.
This thread is about the culture of aggressive behavior that we breed and accept. I'm tired of accepting it.
Can you elaborate on this?
Why does this matter so much? This is like the 27637862487 time that links have been broken due to the exact same action. It isn't the end of the world. It would be ideal if it was repaired, but it's not a dire emergency.
It matters because mailing lists are _hugely important_ to the Wikimedia community and its operations. And again, I don't believe this has happened a number of times previously. I know of it happening once before.
The links breaking sucks, but you're absolutely right that it isn't the end of the world (and I don't think anyone has suggested it is). To me, the apparent corruption of the archives is a much higher priority issue.
MZMcBride
MZMcBride wrote:
Ryan Lane wrote:
Again with the phrasing. Cut it out.
Sincerely, I'm still a little unclear what phrasing you object to here. Just to be perfectly clear, it's the use of the word "mess," right? If so, I can make note not to use that word going forward on this list.
It may be a regional thing...
I think it's more of a cultural thing.
You've displayed two traits that I'd tend to associate with the old Usenet culture:
1. A near-absolute reverence for doing things Right. In the case of system administrative tasks, that means, Never Fuck Up the Data in a Lossy Way. If you have to stay up all night to fix it, you stay up all night.
2. A willingness to avoid issues of delivery in communication, a predilection for calling a spade a spade. If someone gets their feelings hurt by that kind of directness, it's their problem.
As someone who harbors both these traits myself, you have all my sympathy. But as someone who has badly insulted others, and who has been badly insulted by others, the others in this thread have all my sympathy, too. (How's that for fence-sitting?)
Sincerely, I'm still a little unclear what phrasing you object to here. Just to be perfectly clear, it's the use of the word "mess," right? If so, I can make note not to use that word going forward on this list.
It may be a regional thing, but where I'm from, when a lot of things get broken, it's considered a mess. In this case, a lot of links were broken, so I described the situation as a mess. If there are better words to use to describe the situation or words you'd prefer I use, please let me know.
It's not the words. It's the phrasing, tone, and implication behind the statement. It's basically shaming someone for making a mistake and telling them "you need to fix this. now."
You realize that Daniel is the only person who's deleted posts that has even given the slightest care to the fact that the links break, right? This happens all the time and until today we just broke the links.
I don't believe this is true. As Guillaume said in the opening post, these links have been stable for years. Can you provide links or some other kind of evidence that the archive links breaking in this way is a regular occurrence? I know of one other time that this has happened, but you're suggesting that it happens frequently. I don't believe there is any evidence to support this claim.
I really don't feel like going back and searching for the other cases. It's happened quite a few times in the past on multiple mailing lists.
This thread is about the culture of aggressive behavior that we breed and accept. I'm tired of accepting it.
Can you elaborate on this?
The tone of most of our mailing lists is hostile. It discourages new contributors, it encourages staff to quit, and it encourages volunteers to stop contributing. There's been a few threads just this week that have been overly hostile.
Why does this matter so much? This is like the 27637862487 time that links have been broken due to the exact same action. It isn't the end of the world. It would be ideal if it was repaired, but it's not a dire emergency.
It matters because mailing lists are _hugely important_ to the Wikimedia community and its operations. And again, I don't believe this has happened a number of times previously. I know of it happening once before.
The links breaking sucks, but you're absolutely right that it isn't the end of the world (and I don't think anyone has suggested it is). To me, the apparent corruption of the archives is a much higher priority issue.
As I asked previously, is this a new occurrence? I believe it was already corrupted from the last few times this has occurred.
This is definitely a problem. It's something we should try to fix now, and something we should try to avoid in the future. It's great that you pointed out the problem. I'd really prefer that you point out problems in such a way that isn't hostile, though.
- Ryan
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 4:05 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
that, I just don't happen to agree that such behavior (making a mess and then simply walking away) is acceptable in this case.
- I already apologized for breaking links and yes, it was a mistake to not just replace ALL messages in that thread with XXXs - It's not like i just wanted to mess with archives for fun, there have been serious requests by others do remove stuff. - I warned about broken links myself before, there is a trail for this on RT - I did not "simply walk away" unless you are expecting me to work in the middle of the night. I just got to read all your replies and the suggestion to reinsert messages and i am looking at it right now. - I have never been declared the "mailman-guy", i simply picked up tickets nobody else had taken trying to help.
- I warned about broken links myself before, there is a trail for this on RT
All other opinions aside, this isn't good enough for a public list--RT tickets aren't public. I don't even have an account there. Some public posting (to the list, on a wiki somewhere) would be much better.
That said, I'm not overly irritated. There are a few links I need to update, but that's doable. Thanks for handling this issue, and for being responsive to the concerns raised.
Daniel Zahn wrote:
On Fri, Aug 17, 2012 at 4:05 AM, MZMcBride z@mzmcbride.com wrote:
that, I just don't happen to agree that such behavior (making a mess and then simply walking away) is acceptable in this case.
- I already apologized for breaking links and yes, it was a mistake to
not just replace ALL messages in that thread with XXXs
- It's not like i just wanted to mess with archives for fun, there
have been serious requests by others do remove stuff.
- I warned about broken links myself before, there is a trail for this on RT
- I did not "simply walk away" unless you are expecting me to work in
the middle of the night. I just got to read all your replies and the suggestion to reinsert messages and i am looking at it right now.
Hi.
I've always found you to be incredibly helpful on IRC, on the mailing lists, and elsewhere and I've always appreciated having you around. I apologize if my initial message suggested otherwise.
I read your reply to Guillom's post as "shit happens." And it most certainly does. But you said that the archives were last rebuilt two weeks ago, which is where the timeline kind of fell apart in my head. There was no communication to the list and its members and the archive being rebuilt two weeks ago and the consequences of doing so. It took several people noticing and then someone sending a message to the list to get an acknowledgement that the archive rebuild had even taken place. I found this very off-putting.
Mailing lists are _hugely important_ to the Wikimedia community. I hate Mailman as much as anyone, but for historical, technical, and privacy reasons, mailing lists continue to be _hugely important_. With wikitech-l in particular, Gerrit, CodeReview, Bugzilla, wikitech.wikimedia.org, and hundreds of wikis all rely on a somewhat sane and stable system for linking to particular messages in the wikitech-l archive. I personally consult the wikitech-l archives regularly as do many others.
The link breakage sucks, but it's not my primary concern at this point. My primary concern is that the archive now appears to be corrupt. Messages have apparently gone missing from years ago (e.g., the Tim Starling Day announcement from October 31, 2003) and there are artifacts of messages now erroneously appearing in the August 2012 archive (31 messages with the subject line "No subject"). Is it possible for someone to take a look at this corruption and assess what can be done to fix it?
MZMcBride
On 08/17/2012 07:05 AM, MZMcBride wrote:
I just don't happen to agree that such behavior (making a mess and then simply walking away) is acceptable in this case.
I agree that if Daniel had simply walked away from the mess, it would be right to call him out on it.
However, I didn't see any evidence of that. Is there evidence of an on-going problem that Daniel is not involved in fixing?
If you think that he is only fixing it because you called him out on it, you would probably get the same result (and less fallout from the other people on the mailing list) if you were more polite.
Daniel has always been helpful to a fault whenever I interact with him. I have never seen him walk away from a problem, even those he didn't cause.
Mark.
On 17 August 2012 02:42, Ryan Lane rlane32@gmail.com wrote:
What is your plan to clean up the mess you made?
I need to call you out on this MZ. This is an incredibly rude way to phrase this.
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
It's a *slightly* rude way to phrase it. It's important not to overreact.
Ryan Lane wrote:
Can we make an acceptable behavior policy?
[...]
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
I've long advocated for adopting toolserver-l's mailing list etiquette guideline on all Wikimedia mailing lists. It's available here: https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Mailing_list_etiquette.
MZMcBride
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
I've long advocated for adopting toolserver-l's mailing list etiquette guideline on all Wikimedia mailing lists. It's available here: https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Mailing_list_etiquette.
That guideline basically just says don't top post. It doesn't really address aggressive, offensive or hostile behavior, which is something we actually have a problem with. We have this problem on basically all of our lists, so I'm not saying it's limited to this one.
- Ryan
Op vrijdag 17 augustus 2012 schreef Ryan Lane (rlane32@gmail.com) het volgende:
I get that our community tends to accept this kind of behavior, but I think we should really put effort into coming up with some method of discouraging people from acting this way.
I've long advocated for adopting toolserver-l's mailing list etiquette guideline on all Wikimedia mailing lists. It's available here: https://wiki.toolserver.org/view/Mailing_list_etiquette.
That guideline basically just says don't top post. It doesn't really address aggressive, offensive or hostile behavior, which is something we actually have a problem with. We have this problem on basically all of our lists, so I'm not saying it's limited to this one.
Isn't the friendly space policy[1] something that can be applied here? If that policy is slightly adapted so that online spaces are also covered, we don't have to invent YACoC[2].
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Friendly_space_policy [2] yet another code of conduct
Cheers!
Siebrand
On Aug 18, 2012, at 12:55 AM, Siebrand Mazeland (WMF) wrote:
Isn't the friendly space policy[1] something that can be applied here? If that policy is slightly adapted so that online spaces are also covered, we don't have to invent YACoC[2].
[1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Friendly_space_policy [2] yet another code of conduct
Cheers!
Siebrand
The friendly space policy appears to be geared more towards dealing with discrimination and harassment, which isn't really the issue at hand. As far as I can tell, the issue that caused this thread is a perceived lack of diplomacy, tact, and respect in communicating with others in the community. This terseness/lack of respect[1] raises the general level of tension in the community, and contributes to what would be considered a toxic environment for new volunteers. The WMF official code of conduct (http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Code_of_conduct_policy) at least includes some language regarding treating everyone in a respectful manner, but lacks any outlet for complaints or concerns (which the friendly space policy DOES have, which is awesome).
As much as I agree that it's good to not re-invent the wheel when we don't have to, I DO think a community code of conduct is something that is worth doing, and not adequately shoehorned into any of the existing publicized policies. Ideally (to me), there should be two parts: first, a community code of conduct identifying behavior we wish to avoid (harassment, discrimination, disrespectful language, accusatory language) AND a laid out course of action for when issues arise (contact the person privately and CC the moderator, or if you feel unsafe doing so, just contact the moderator); second, a general email etiquette guide, that can provide general guidance on how to follow the code of conduct.
Something to bear in mind with all of this is that I don't think anyone is trying to act in bad faith here. No one is trying to troll. I think all anyone is really asking for is a bit more consideration in HOW we say things on this list.
Thanks, Nabil Maynard
[1] Lack of respect is not the same as disrespect (in the same way that amorality is not the same as immorality). With disrespect, it is a lot easier to identify a specific statement that was heinous enough to invoke the drama and ire of others on the list. With a lack of respect, it is much harder to point at any one thing, and it can often end up being justified/excused as being "technically correct." When that happens enough, though, people are still going to snap, and it'll be harder to clean up.
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org