[WikiEN-l] [Redacted] complaining Was: Admins who do not have email this user enabled (list inside)

[Armed Blowfish]

On 13/09/2007, Andrew Gray <andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk> wrote:
> On 13/09/2007, Armed Blowfish <diodontida.armata at googlemail.com> wrote:
>> There are dozens of reasons why someone might
>> not have email enabled - having left Wikipaedia,
>> being on wikibreak, odd privacy concerns, not
>> involved in blocking people, having offered alternative
>> off-wiki communication, not knowing their email was
>> disabled, etc.
>>
>> My point is, you can't understand why just from looking
>> at a list, but everyone has a reason, and that makes all
>> the difference.
>
> I don't believe anyone ever said these people might not have reasons
> for it. It's a trivial note - look, here's a problem, it affects these
> people; it was dashed off in five minutes. That's *all it is*.
>
> It's not a list of "these are bad people". It's not revealing
> confidential information. It's not an indepth study and analysis of
> individuals. It's a note of a known problem*, and - helpfully - a list
> of some people known to be affected by it, plus implicitly a reminder
> to non-admins that it might be a good idea to check. I don't see any
> reason people should be expected to go to great lengths to make sure
> that no-one has any possible reason to misinterpret them when all
> they're doing is making a quick helpful comment.
>
> I think I need to return to the phrase "otherwise no-one would ever
> get any work done", which seems quite appropriate.
>
> --
> - Andrew Gray
>   andrew.gray at dunelm.org.uk
>
> * a presumed problem, based on a known issue in similar circumstances
> elsewhere, but that's pretty much the same thing.

Couldn't we just have statistics?  'Out of X admins checked,
Y (Z%) had email disabled.  Please check to confirm your
email in enabled, especially if you block people.'