[Foundation-l] open letter by Wikiversity users to the WMF Board of Trustees

[Thomas Dalton]

On 4 April 2010 13:57, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 4 April 2010 13:56, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> As far as I am concerned, there have been a few persons who manifested
>> themselves as not taking no for an answer, who were blocked on several
>> projects, who moved to Wikiversity and continued their campaign they were
>> blocked for from Wikiversity.
>
>
> Yes. This "open letter" is the trolls not taking no for an answer.

I think the letter makes some excellent points, but it is going to
come across as precisely that since so few people seem to be signing
it. The text shouldn't have been finalised until it was such that a
large number of people would sign it. The current letter will probably
be ignored - the board can't respond to every request from half a
dozen Wikimedians. A less strongly worded letter that would have got
dozens of signatures would have had a much greater impact.

This has been a recurring feature of the response to Jimmy's actions
on Wikiversity. A very large number of people aren't happy with what
he did, but (as always) only those that feel particularly strongly
about it are trying to do anything other than moan. What they are
trying to do doesn't, however, take into account that general
community opinion isn't as strong as their own opinion. For example,
the proposal to strip Jimmy of all his powers was never going to have
consensus. That should have been obvious to everyone from the outset,
which means it should never had been proposed - it just creates drama.
A more moderate proposal to limit Jimmy's powers and make him more
accountable might have actually gone somewhere. Whenever you are
thinking of proposing something you need to give serious thought to
whether your proposal stands any chance of being adopted. If it
doesn't, it is probably a bad idea of propose it (unless your goal is
just to draw attention to a problem and you don't actually mean this
proposal to be adopted, but that is a difficult method to make
successful - the attention is too often drawn to you rather than the
problem, and it isn't positive attention). You should try and come up
with a compromise that stands a chance of being adopted.