[Foundation-l] Report to the Board of Trustees: Davos

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

Sue Gardner wrote:
> Report to the Board: Davos
> Prepared by: Sue Gardner, Executive Director
> Prepared for: Wikimedia Board of Trustees
> Date: February 3, 2009
>
>   

> Interestingly, a number of people complained to me about their
> articles being overly negative.  Obviously Jimmy gets this all the
> time, but I was surprised how often it was the first thing a person
> would say to me. All my conversations about Wikipedia were warm and
> friendly and positive, with the exception of people's pain/anger about
> BLP issues.
>
>   

I don't in the least wish to belittle this problem. Quite
obviously it is a very real one. But perhaps a bit of
perspective can be gained, by noting that at some
times the general impression of wikipedia has been that
it was all written by fan boys, and because of this it
would never be able to throw a critical glance at all
the content in it.

And of course both things happen all the time, simultaneously.
What you need to remember is that all the people who are
secretly satisfied their article is remarkably fair to them, or
even greatly relieved how merciful their article is about their
various foibles; never mind those who won't say publicly they
think their article is even far too laudatory ... well, those
people won't be the first in line to talk about it to you, will
they. Try to focus on that; when you get in those situations.


Yours,

Jussi-Ville Heiskanen