[Foundation-l] #wikipedia IRC channel guidelines review

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On 7/30/07, Mark Ryan <ultrablue at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello everyone.
>
> As a few of you may know, about 5 weeks ago some new guidelines were
> put into place on meta for the IRC channel #wikipedia. At the same
> time, the operator access list for the channel was emptied and started
> from scratch.
>

I think it is worth pointing out that there were not merely these two acts;
*asserting* (I would disdain the phrase "put into place" because clearly
they didn't stay put) new guidelines and starting from scratch, but there
was a third and quite pointedly the most significant element - requiring
all newly accepted or re-accepted ops to "pledge allegiance" to the "new
model channel-op guidelines", thus trying to stave off *any* effort to
ameliorate the effects of the new guidelines.

That is to say, if you disagreed with the guidelines, you were not an op
yourself, and any criticism of the guidelines was in practise considered
trolling. Contrariwise, if you were an op, you had pledged not to disagree
with the guidelines. Whether one did or did not disagree with the new
guidelines, many fairminded people found this odious.

> The changes were quite unpopular, to say the least. A discussion
> thread was started about them on the foundation-l mailing list, but
> probably should have been started on wikipedia-l.

I think your phrasing may mislead peoples understanding somewhat.

There is a separate question of whether the changes to the guidelines
were poorly thought out. Not nearly all, who objected to the *actions*
taken, disagreed with the new guidelines as such.

Had the self-same *changes* been made, but in a completely different
fashion, fairminded people would have to concede that the changes
very well might have been immensely popular.

>
> Now that I am back from my holiday, I have opened a review discussion
> about the guidelines on their talk page on meta, which you can access
> at the follow URL:
>
> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:IRC_guidelines/wikipedia
>
> I would very much appreciate the input there of all people who have an
> interest in the guidelines, and indeed any users of the
> Wikipedia-affiliated IRC channels on Freenode.

I would re-emphasize that focusing on the guidelines will not get to the
heart of the problem, the perception of the actions taken, and the still
lingering effects that have nothing at all to do with the guidelines as
such.

--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]