[Foundation-l] Pissed off at en:Wikisource

[Huib Laurens]

Hello,

I think this is a communety thing. Its to bad that you lost your
adminship but why should people from other projects step in?
I mean this is something on the en.source not a global thing.
huib

2009/3/10, Ray Saintonge <saintonge op telus.net>:
> The behaviour of three people in driving me out of adminship at
> en:wikisource has left me bitterly disappointed with and deeply offended
> by the length to which some will go to rid themselves of someone whom
> they personally dislike.  I cannot but view their efforts as anything
> but a series of concerted personal attacks.  The details can be found at
> http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:Administrators/Archives/Eclecticology
>
> The process began in the context of an annual confirmation at
> Wikisource.  John Vandenberg began stirring the pot with a series of
> five claims which were all easily refuted.  He later commented:"there is
> no expectation that evidence is provided here, nor is there a
> requirement to have attempted to "fix" the admin conduct prior to the
> vote of confidence."  This is clear hostility to any peaceful resolution.
>
> Pathoschild did not hesitate to distort and exaggerate individual
> incidents to suit his purposes.  If I call a certain type of edit
> "useless", it can hardly be construed as a comment about the person.
> When he went so far as to say that I was belittling others, that was a
> bald-faced lie. His comment, "Of course he can reapply at any time, but
> I'll likely object then for the same reasons," tells me that he is
> willing to hold on to his grudges indefinitely.
>
> Although, to his credit, Thomas V did not cast a vote because his
> en:wikisource activities have recently been sparse, that did not prevent
> him from dragging in old settled issues pre-dating the division of
> Wikisource into separate domains.  He did not hesitate to attack two
> individuals who supported my continued adminship.  For one he complained
> that his support was based entirely on the way I looked in a picture of
> me taken at a Portland meetup.  There was no doubt more to the IRC
> conversation than that, but I am not privy to how those
> behind-the-scenes conversations may have influenced opinions.
>
> The grudges with the latter two individuals have been ongoing for a long
> time, and in the past year I have been more than happy to keep my
> contact with them to a minimum.  I certainly have not had the energy to
> wantonly dig up dirt on them when their confirmations came up.
>
> The underlying issues for the complaints against me would be laughable
> in certain other projects.  NPOV issues are fairly uncommon in
> Wikisource; persistent copyvios are not an issue; no questions of
> edit-warring are involved.  Much of the problems had to do with cleaning
> up backlog, or differing views about how articles should be named, or
> banners on an author page to say that we had no works by that author
> even though that fact was already obvious because all the links were
> red.  I have also had strong differences with the more technically
> minded people (including all three named above) over technical solutions
> and how we use templates.  I happen to believe that an overuse of such
> techniques will drive away desperately needed help from non-technical
> people, and that some of the more rigid structures actually  hinder our
> ability to become a value-added project.  I have no compunctions about
> expressing my visions forcefully, or allowing for multiple solutions to
> a problem without feeling obliged to choose one as superior.  If one is
> indeed superior it will eventually prevail without being forced. Being
> an admin should not prevent anyone from strongly arguing views that are
> different from those that currently prevail, and the fear that those
> tools may be taken away should not serve to intimidate admins away from
> taking unpopular actions.  Proceeding with fairness and integrity is
> more important than popularity, and if it means that my actions will
> occasionally be reversed I'm not too worried about that
>
> I have participated in these communities for seven years already, and my
> loyalty to their success is beyond question.  I was active on the
> original Wikisource from the day that it opened, and have always
> maintained a vision for that project that goes far beyond the current
> trends.
>
> In the course of the confirmations I did express my willingness to
> consider mediation, but that received no response at all.  The
> Wikisource community is too small to have a regular arbitration or
> appeal process, and seeking a review from the same people who drove the
> tyranny of the majority is not likely to be successful.  They are not in
> a position to take a fresh unbiased approach to the matter.  I would
> appreciate it if someone could give a fresh look at this, and perhaps
> provide a degree of mediation.
>
> Ec
>
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