[Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart

[Dror Kamir]

First of all, I am not talking just about BLP. This is part of the 
problem. I am also concerned about new editors who were treated badly 
(that happens more often than you think), about unreasonable decisions 
of admins etc. Secondly, such ombudsman should keep a certain distance 
from Wikipedia's "corridors", namely, s/he must not be an administrator 
nor bureaucrat, and while s/he should be well acquainted with Wikipedia, 
perhaps it would be better if s/he won't edit. Furthermore, it is 
crucial that this person be identified by her/his real name and be 
reachable in various ways, not only through an e-mail address. It is 
also important that this person give a public account on the problems 
s/he handled and measures s/he took to solve them. The very existence 
of  such a report is the guarantee that all complaints be addressed 
properly, and in addition it would increase transparency and let us have 
a clear picture of the Wikipedian scene.

Dror K

בתאריך 14/03/11 15:18, ציטוט 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.
>
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