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

[Andrew Gray]

2009/2/5 Marc Riddell <michaeldavid86 at comcast.net>:
> When will you people finally acknowledge that there is something terribly
> wrong with the deteriorating level of discourse occurring in the Projects?

Marc, this may be a surprise to you, but you're not a lone voice in
the wilderness. Everyone with experience knows that many of our
communities are dysfunctional to a greater or lesser degree; we have
hordes of people who fundamentally don't get along and don't seem to
want to do so.

It's not like we've all ignored it forever. Everyone who is committed
to the projects wants a more pleasant working environment. We've
wanted it for years, we've discussed it for years, and we've all tried
to lance the boils in our own way (in some cases more dramatically
than others).

You can see the results we've had: viz, not a lot. It's not like we
can put our foot down and say "play nice, now, guys" and things get
better. If we could solve this problem easily, we'd have done it years
ago.

The reason you keep getting a "there he goes again" response on the
lists is, well, that we keep hearing demands to do more from you, to
somehow change the system. But the fact that we haven't done that yet
isn't because no-one has ever listened to you - it means it's a damn
big problem, and everything we've tried so far doesn't work. Being
told to do it, when we all want to do it *and can't*, just gets
people's backs up.

So, please, if you know how we can make this situation better, *tell
us*. Please explain, clearly and practically, what you think we need
to do. You clearly have some understanding of the issue, but I hope
you can see that you've really not been managing to communicate it to
any of us!

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk