[Foundation-l] Priorities

[Marc Riddell]

> 
> --- Florence Devouard <anthere at anthere.org> wrote:
> 
>> We are more numerous, more protective to our
>> featured-content, less welcoming to our newbies (for
>> technical or social
>> reasons).
>> How many experts have been driven away by the agressivity
>> of some of our 
>> members ? How many new editors just were discouraged by
>> the difficulty 
>> of editing a table or a template ? How many newbies were
>> blocked because 
>> they just did not understood quickly enough how to use a
>> talk page ?
>> Also, during the year, several cases of online or offline
>> harassment of 
>> contributors were reported. Harassement which came as a
>> result of their 
>> contributions to our projects.
> 
on 10/21/07 10:25 AM, Matthew Britton at matthew.britton at btinternet.com
wrote:

> Absolutely.
> 
> Having tried editing anonymously for a few weeks myself, I
> can assure you our treatment of newcomers - even those that
> understand things from a technical perspective - leaves
> much to be desired.
> 
> I'd also like to add another question to your list, if I
> may. How many experienced editors with thousands of edits
> and no user conduct issues have been forced to stop
> contributing after they were found to be editing via
> proxies and issued with a de facto ban by administrators
> enforcing a policy for policy's sake? While the number may
> be small, the loss from each is significant.
> 
Florence & Gurch,

The can this opens is one which has needed opening for some time now. There
needs to be a complete, in-depth look at the entire Admin process: where it
started, where it is now, how they are chosen, who chooses them, who they
are accountable to, what it takes to get rid of them. This needs to include
an admin by admin survey of the persons currently wielding this power. As
daunting as this task may appear, it is crucial to the future of the
Project. For these are the persons with a great deal of power and control,
and not nearly enough oversight or accountability.

Marc Riddell