[Foundation-l] Racism in Commons

[Ayelie]

On Dec 5, 2007 10:12 AM, Christiano Moreschi <moreschiwikiman at hotmail.co.uk>
wrote:

>
> Why bother? Good old William of Occam would have made a fantastic
> Wikimedian. You've got a simple, quick, and easy solution to a pretty bad
> problem. Why hesitate and go in for something more complicated? Don't
> understand the reason to overcomplicate. Or, alternatively, you could ban
> him from uploading any more politics-related images...
>
> Honestly, though, if we get to the stage where 50 percent of one guy's
> picture gallery labels him as a Neo-Nazi - complete fringe theory - Commons
> need to learn something from enwiki and toughen up. There's a word for that
> we use at enwiki: POV-pushing. This is not acceptable and we don't really
> need any more bad press at the moment, not with Durova/!! all over the
> Register.


En.wikipedia has a lot more problems and disgruntled users than Commons ever
has, and I don't believe it is purely due to size or reputation. We're more
easy-going at Commons and we try to talk to and help people before clicking
the block button and pissing them off - you'd be surprised how many times
I've explained one point of policy to someone who would otherwise have been
blocked for uploading copyvios or such after repeated warnings, and they
realised a point they hadn't understood before and became decent
contributors. Policy and copyright are hard to understand and blocking is
not the way to educate people.

en.wp does not do things perfectly; and no, they aren't the perfect older
sibling for the little ones to look up to. En.wp is more like the rebellious
older sibling who became a rock star and wildly famous, but is also slowly
killing itself with drugs and alcohol. Just because it makes a lot of money
and has a lot of fans doesn't mean the little siblings should mimic its
behaviour.

--Ayelie
   (Editor at Large)