[Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart

[Andreas Kolbe]

--- On Mon, 14/3/11, Dror Kamir <dqamir at bezeqint.net> wrote:
> From: Dror Kamir <dqamir at bezeqint.net>
> Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] breaking English Wikipedia apart
> To: foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Monday, 14 March, 2011, 13:27
> 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.


Having a single person would not work, as people would assume that a single
person may have their own personal biases affecting their judgment.

An elected committee might work, and I do think we should look at empowering
such a committee to remove the right to edit BLPs from editors who 
repeatedly abuse it, and at creating the technical means to do so.

Whether that is by creating a separate BLP project, as John has proposed, 
which can block or ban its own editors, or as part of a BLP flag system in 
Wikipedia, is relatively immaterial.

Andreas