[Foundation-l] Criticism of employees (was VPAT)

[whothis]

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 5:27 PM, Alison M. Wheeler <
wikimedia at alisonwheeler.com> wrote:

>
> > On 17 February 2011 08:47, Christine Moellenberndt
> > (and by the way, this is just little me with a cat on her lap
> > talking, not WMF employee talking)
>
> Something which might be worth bearing in mind is that (sfaiaa!) everyone
> involved with the projects - staff and volunteer alike - use a consistent
> attribution. In many companies, where staff will have interactions with
> non-staff in a purely online environment, they are required to maintain two
> identities: one 'real' for 'official' work and one 'fake' when they want to
> interact as an individual. I certainly recall having to do this when working
> on msn and I believe that such official-but-sortof-sockpuppet is nowhere
> near as open as what WMF staffers are displaying, which is to all our (ie.
> us readers) benefit.
>
> Alison
>
> ps. Yes, I'm aware there have been specific exceptions to this in the past,
> but that was some years ago now.
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>
>
Hi there

I just wanted to get my thought in on this.

On Feb 16, 2011, at 5:52 PM, Nathan wrote:

> At some point WMF employees might just stop posting here altogether,
> to escape the unfounded criticism.

Tell them to go ahead, this list has already been referred to troll-l and a
dozen excuses have been offered why the staff ignores it for the most part
after someone dared to question one of the beloved fellow. The volume of the
criticism is only going to get louder if the staff continues to ignore the
concerns, I'd like to believe that there is a pattern there. You can't drown
out your criticism by ignoring a mailing list. I think it's a central
problem with the foundation, it seems to be heading in the opposite
direction than how they perceive it themselves. I think it only proves the
concerns that have been raised before, the foundation might just stop
communicating altogether and use this list for announcements, whether anyone
likes them or not.

Second Christine, you can't answer someone off-list to a question that was
asked on-list and expect people to be satisfied. Its not about openness or
this mailing list in particular, I think you might have the same issue with
any other public form of communication. If someone asks a question in a
conference publicly, you can't take them aside and answer individually and
expect that to satisfy the rest of the audience. I don't agree with the rest
of the criticism against you on the list, and please don't take it
personally but that explanation could have been better.

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 12:13 PM, Jon Davis <wiki at konsoletek.com> wrote:
>
>
> I've been a community member a lot longer than I've been staff, even still,
> I only skim foundation-l about half the time. In my thinking, to really get
> properly involved with a thread (rather than throwing out random comments
> which might only be tangentially related) it can take a lot reading,
> investigating and writing. My salary comes from donations, and I don't want
> to spend that paid time on something that isn't necessarily my job (When
> Google Apps came up, I responded), some could see that as wasteful.   Now
> if
> the entire community feels that every staff member should read and respond
> to foundation-l, well then that would be a different story all together.
>

Then who do you expect to follow and reply on the list, if not that staff.
You know, the people being paid to run the projects, the majority of
discussions are related to their work and operations. If they don't want to
spend their paid time on doing something so unproductive as answering the
community's concern then who should. Oh...you meant it's for all us
non-employees, who have jobs and responsibilities outside of Wikipedia, only
we are expected to read the list...silly me. I think I understand why it's
seen as wasteful. It's for all the volunteers who give their time reading
and thinking about Wikimedia related activities, we can't expect the paid
employees to do the same.......or care. I think that's what it comes down,
people complaining on this list care for the most part, and the staff might
not, as much. it's just a job to them like any other, or that's what your
justification led me to believe.

Just a thought here, but maybe the "Community Department," should actually
include some people from the community. I know it might be against
some super-secret policy of avoiding community members but at least the
"Community Department" could try including someone from the community.



-- 
Sorry my karma ran over your dogma.