[Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart

[David Gerard]

On 14 March 2011 12:53, Dror Kamir <dqamir at bezeqint.net> wrote:

> As a first step, I think it would be useful to appoint an ombudsman to
> Wikipedia, either one to all of them or to each one. We can start with
> the English Wikipedia. This ombudsman will be identified by her/his real
> name and receive complaints from editors and from people who are
> subjects of articles. While this person can use help from other
> Wikipedians, it is important that there would be one person who would
> lead this work and be known, reachable and responsible to answer every
> complaint. The idea that anonymous admins, who act mainly upon their own
> personal judgment, can handle every problem, should be cast aside. It is
> also important that such ombudsman publish a public report about the
> complaints received in a certain period of time and how they were
> handled. It is also important that s/he would have the authority to
> intervene in the decisions of admins in certain cases, e.g. BLP.


Something like this is how it works now - if stuff gets to the BLP
queue in OTRS, the experienced editors who deal with such things do
descend on said articles, editorial axe in hand. This mechanism has
the general support of the community, the admins and the arbcom.

The main problem I've found is that aggrieved BLP subjects don't
understand that they can actually email info at wikimedia.org and have
someone seriously look at the problem.


- d.