[Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 40, Issue 9

[Dan Rosenthal]

Problem is, we can't disenfranchise the users who don't use village  
pump, IRC, or mailing lists. Email is the only way. Hell, we've  
already established that certain users can't see the on-wiki site  
notices.

-Dan

On Jul 3, 2007, at 4:03 PM, Robert Horning wrote:

> Dan Rosenthal wrote:
>> I don't see the difference between a voter drive on en.wp, and the
>> other projects having direct action drives on them stating "GO VOTE!"
>> and having similar campaigns.
>>
>> Why is this actually an issue? The email apparently does not say
>> "Vote for XYZ and not  ABC". It just says go vote.
>>
>> Why do you feel this is A) noteworthy, and B) anything we should be
>> concerned about?
>>
>> -Dan Rosenthal
>>
>
> An issue here is if you already have some sort of relationship with  
> the
> individual that you are exchanging e-mails and user talk page notes
> with, and which ones you havn't.  If you are sending a quick  
> reminder to
> a bunch of people in a Wikiproject that you have all worked on a  
> common
> set of articles and already have a relationship with, I don't see the
> problem.  But if you have never had any other sort of exchange with
> these individuals in the past and a message of this sort is your very
> first communication, I would call that spam.
>
> Heck, I would call "welcome messages" a sort of spam, but something  
> that
> generally is beneficial to the project.  Perhaps the only type that
> should be permitted.  And it does provide a point of contact with the
> commnity as well.  Because of the "spam-like" nature of the welcome
> messages, I usually try to add a personal touch as well when I write
> them and add these sort of messages myself on projects where I'm
> active.  Usually commenting about the kinds of edits that new user has
> been involved with and to let them know there are people and not some
> 'bot that has been spamming these messages out.
>
> If your desire is to spread the message to a larger community in
> general, there are other tools such as the village pump, mailing  
> lists,
> IRC, and other sorts of communications media that can be used to  
> get the
> message out regarding this sort of activity.  And nearly every active
> Wikimedia project has multiple communications methods like these and
> more (like the Signpost and even blogs) that can used for sending mass
> communications where the people reading those forii know in advanced
> that they are mass communication media regarding these projects.
>
> Tools like user talk pages and personal e-mail links are additional,
> usually emergency communication channels.  As an admin on a couple of
> projects, I usually get some sort of regular communication on nearly a
> daily basis... more so when I'm especially active.  These sort of
> communication channels are critical to remain free of cruft and mass
> communicatoin, at least for me.  When I have time to read the mass
> communication channels, I take that time and do so.  Just as I am  
> here.
> But I don't put a priority on responding here.
>
> I'm not going to sugar coat that there is a problem with the Village
> Pump on en.wikipedia, if only because it is a fire hose torrent of
> opinions and information pouring through having discussions quite  
> often
> disappear before I get a chance to even read them.  That is also  
> one of
> the reasons, BTW, that I don't claim Wikipedia as my primary  
> project, as
> the sheer number of people involved is in many ways overwhelming.
>
> -- Robert Horning
>
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