[Foundation-l] FW: [Wikinews-l] Increased incivility at wikinews [en] <warning: contains rant>

[Cary Bass]

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Marc Riddell wrote:
> When will you people finally acknowledge that there is something terribly
> wrong with the deteriorating level of discourse occurring in the Projects?
> And this trend is certainly not confined to Wikinews. Take a good,
objective
> look at some of the dialogue occurring on the English Wikipedia. The
> atmosphere is becoming angrier and more hostile by the day.
>
> And, Erik, when I broached this subject in a private email conversation
with
> you, you never even acknowledged receipt of that email. What would you have
> done if we were speaking to each other in person - stare at me in silence?
> That, alone, speaks volumes.
First of all, Erik may or may not have received your email, and the
reasons he did or did not respond to you can be immense and varied.
You should not make assumptions based on a lack of communication by
anyone, staff or community member.

Secondly, what gives you the impression that Foundation staff are able
to sweep in and make everyone behave; or furthermore, why should you
not assume that we've not already tried some way to encourage
conviviality and discourage attacks. I have personally found myself
in the predicament of trying to solve issues for people and getting my
head bitten off by the very people I was trying to help! At least one
of those individuals resorted to calling me denigrating names on
lists cc'd to numerous folks, including coworkers, Jimmy Wales, and my
boss; and his fellow complainants did nothing to object.

The Foundation, as successful as the last fundraiser went, remains to
having limited resources. Our volunteering model is next to
impossible to define, given the enormity of our community.

Discussions take place on IRC about the simple idea of removing admin
access to anyone who uses ugly or rude block messages. This idea is
met with huge opposition; by solid contributors. You're asking
people to stop acting like people.

Perhaps we should follow the Wikinews discussion more closely...even
participate in it, rather than expanding it to include all of the
Foundation projects in one fell swoop. Given that the community is
much smaller there, a solution might take place that will result in
people being more proactive about reducing ugliness and being kinder
to one another and promoting an assumption of good faith.

Maybe Wikinews can even come up with a model that can be adopted by
other projects.

Cary Bass
Volunteer Coordinator
Wikimedia Foundation
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