[Foundation-l] Moderate this list

[Birgitte SB]

--- On Fri, 9/11/09, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Moderate this list
> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
> Date: Friday, September 11, 2009, 1:49 PM
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2009 at 1:14 PM, effe
> iets anders
> <effeietsanders at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > I think we're talking about two groups of people and
> thinking here:
> > 1) a group of people who have the principle "be bold"
> in their coat of arms
> > and love to say anything that comes to mind, no matter
> whether that might be
> > rude or not.
> > 2) the people who see discussion more as a social
> process which is helped by
> > involving more people.
> >
> > At an IRL meeting, one of these two groups sets the
> atmosphere. Either the
> > bold group can discuss loudly and the "social" people
> feel not at home and
> > they leave. Either the social people are nice and are
> disturbed by the rude
> > behaviour of the bold people, and tell them to be nice
> or shut up.
> >
> > I tend to prefer the second group, since I sincerely
> believe that it is
> > important and even crucial to allow people to discuss,
> and allow many people
> > to discuss.
> >
> > By telling that people who don't like the shouting
> even though they have a
> > delete button, by saying that people should just grow
> a thick skin, you
> > clearly say that you belong to the first group, and
> you are not interested
> > enough in their opinion to change your behaviour, even
> though you don't even
> > have a clou how big that group is and who's in it. I
> would even go as far as
> > to say I find that quite asocial and rude, and strikes
> me in the same way as
> > when I go to a cafe, people spit on me and shout at
> me, and if I complain
> > about that, I'm just told that I should go home and
> not bother, because that
> > is just the way they behave in that cafe...
> 
> (Answering to Gerard's mail, too.)
> 
> It is important to have calm atmosphere during discussions.
> But, it is
> important to have bold/impudent persons in the discussion,
> because it
> is more probable that they'd say to you what do they think
> and what do
> others think, but don't want to say. While they are
> constructive. And
> I may list a number of reasons why do I think that Antony,
> Thomas
> Dalton and even Gregory Kohs *are* constructive (if anyone
> wants, I'll
> make the list).
> 

As someone who does not think heavy-moderation is a good answer to the problem, I think you are missing the point.

These bold/imprudent sort of people have useful contributions in sharing their positions.  It is the way they ridicule others who have different positions that is the problem.  BTW this is not limited only to those generally critical of WMF, there are supporters of WMF that have the same problem.  The end result of this behavior is that there less participation from people not comfortable with the ridicule.  And the people who are less likely to participate because of this is not equally spread across cultures.  So it hurts our outreach and it hurts our general purpose because we end up hearing thoughts from a much less diverse group than we might.

Two examples of the tone I find to be such a problem

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-August/054235.html

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2009-August/054159.html

I honestly believe that as long as this sort of tone continues to be a regular feature here; the overwhelming majority of participants here will be Western men.

Birgitte SB