[Foundation-l] Banner ads in sitenotice

[David Gerard]

On 3 August 2010 02:32, Brandon Harris <bharris at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> On 8/2/2010 6:12 PM, MZMcBride wrote:

>> A lot of the complaints I heard regarding the Vector rollout were based in
>> the fact that the Wikimedia Usability team has subverted and bastardized the
>> term "usability" in an attempt to impose purely aesthetic choices on the
>> broader community.

>        This reads to me like you're trying to start a fight with the Usability
> team, and I don't rightly cotton to that idea.  The team is comprised of
> many people, all with different opinions to be sure - but they are all
> *dedicated to the mission.*
>        So you should assume good faith, even if you disagree.


This is a strange usage of "assume good faith" that assumes all
criticism must necessarily be assumption of bad faith.

It is observed and documented that the Usability team worked in a
manner separated from the community, and that they forced their views
upon the community with blunt reversion when challenged. And that
these actions caused *severe* problems with the community.

Acknowledging severely negative factual events that not only actually
occurred, but were apologised for by the perpetrators, does not
somehow imply that the people doing these things did them deliberately
or with malicious intent, as your message seems to imply.

That these observed behaviours were later acknowledged as severely
problematic, and that some effort was gone to in order to make sure
they did not recur, is not a reason to try to block acknowledgement
that these problems did in fact occur, which is the obvious result of
what you here posit. Please don't do this.


- d.