[Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and autonomy of Wikimedia projects

[Birgitte SB]

Thanks for clarifying.  I definitely agree that b'crat using their discretion to weight the votes of community members vs others is the right way to go here.  This is the procedure followed at en.WS as well.  I think a lot of the larger issue is due to the fact that some wikis take much longer to discuss things and think about them before taking action than I find to be common at en.WP.  While en.WP is usually quick to take some action then discuss it and possibly reverse or modify the original action.  en.WS tends to discuss and if there is no consensus they will "wait and see" for quite some time, but once they take an action no one is interested in discussing it further for a good while. I think the problems may often be simply a clashes between two different styles in handling problems without much real disagreement on substance.  That said I would implore anyone to learn and use the local style to accomplish anything in that local wiki.  It may seem
 irrational, but I can guarantee that the intial misuderstandings started by stylistic differences will be very difficult to overcome.

Birgitte SB

--- On Tue, 8/12/08, mike.lifeguard <mike.lifeguard at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: mike.lifeguard <mike.lifeguard at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and autonomy of Wikimedia projects
> To: birgitte_sb at yahoo.com, "'Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List'" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Tuesday, August 12, 2008, 9:51 AM
> Unfortunately, you've misunderstood the situation. Since
> discussing real
> situations is normally preferable, here's a hopefully
> quick, hopefully
> neutral description which names names. For your
> consideration:
> 
> Moulton is indefinitely blocked (or maybe banned?) on
> enwiki, and has since
> moved to Meta, then to Wikiversity, where he is working on
> http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Ethical_Management_of_the_English_Language_Wi
> kipedia - until recently it contained links to his blog,
> which apparently
> outs Wikimedians. SB Johnny is a CheckUser there, and an
> admin at Commons
> (among other stuff) & was recently nominated for CU at
> Commons
> (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests_and_votes
> /SB_Johnny_(checkuser) with the aftermath located at
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Administrators/Requests_and_votes/
> SB_Johnny_(checkuser)/Bureaucrats_discussion and the talk
> pages of both).
> Due to his involvement with Moulton and his project,
> several enwiki users
> came to Commons to voice opposition. There are some privacy
> issues involved,
> but that much should clarify what we're talking about.
> 
> Commons does indeed have an active community - the issue
> was what to do
> about an influx of new users voting on an RFX. Commons
> doesn't have a
> suffrage policy, so there was a small amount of
> hand-wringing over that
> issue, and much drama surrounding the whole affair.
> 
> So the situation is not that some outsider had requested
> CU, and the folks
> from elsewhere were largely opposing the nomination. And
> Johnny is not
> banned elsewhere - he is not the problem user.
> 
> However, I think your prescription stands. It was
> appropriate to give light
> weight to new users' votes (actually, they were
> disregarded entirely;
> CheckUser uses a straight-up vote :\ ) and with the
> situation at
> Wikiversity, it is up to that community to reign in problem
> users or not as
> they see fit. Certainly past experience of other projects
> should guide &
> inform them though.
> 
> Further discussion should not flog the horse described
> above, but should
> please look at the general issues raised.
> 
> Thanks, Mike
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Birgitte SB [mailto:birgitte_sb at yahoo.com] 
> Sent: August 11, 2008 9:39 PM
> To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and
> autonomy of Wikimedia projects
> 
> This is a problematic situation, but I don't understand
> why there is such a
> breakdown in communication between the project that it
> would get to this
> point.  I certainly think that it out of line for a
> non-local community
> member to run for checkuser without the local communities
> blessing if that
> is indeed what has happened here.  If there no local
> community to speak of
> it should be a steward issue, and no election of checkuser
> should be
> necessary.  If there is a local community and this report
> is accurate, I
> cannot imagine more insurmountable error that could be made
> in good faith.
> I cannot even imagine how to overcome the cultural gaffe of
> trying to get
> checkuser rights within a local community that is not
> supportive of the
> idea.  Now it could be the local community is supportive of
> checkuser and
> the difficulties in having 22 local voters is leading to
> crossover support
> from other wikis which the local communities is accepting
> of.  But if the
> local
>  communities did not invite the situation, I think the
> non-local editors
> need to back off let some people who are untainted by this
> gaffe try and
> salvage the situation and broker some kind of compromise
> and cooperation.
> If this is worse case, it is not the sort of situation
> which will work out
> on it's own to anyone's satisfaction.  But this is
> all described so vaguely.
> Please make it clear about how substantial the local
> community is and if
> they are truly concerned.
> 
> Birgitte SB
> 
> 
>       
> 
> 
> 
> 
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