[Foundation-l] Will Beback

[Ray Saintonge]

On 03/12/12 12:35 PM, George Herbert wrote:
> Without delving into the specifics here, or concluding either way as
> to the current case lacking actual evidence in front of me, it is a
> real and quite serious problem if we don't hold senior and longtime
> editors to account for abuses they may perpetuate on the Wiki.
>
> The hue and cry of "But I contributed XZY!" is true, but irrelevant.
> If one is abusive on the Wiki, one damages the community in deep and
> divisive ways.  Everyone needs to understand that.  If you start
> disrupting the community, no matter who you are or where you were, it
> needs to stop.

This would be fine if all the established admins who abuse newbies were 
held to the same standards.

But as has been said, Wikipedia is not a democracy. That's enough to 
make secret Stalinist processes valid.

Ray

> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 6:18 AM, Nathan<nawrich at gmail.com>  wrote:
>> On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 6:00 AM, James Heilman<jmh649 at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>
>>> I must disagree with Risker that this is simply a local issue involving a
>>> single project or with a previous editor who feels that English Wikipedia
>>> can take care of itself. We have a serious lack of editors not only on
>>> English Wikipedia but within the project as a whole and this is getting
>>> worse rather than better. The foundation has been putting great efforts
>>> into attracting editors and Will's case touches on the issue of recruitment
>>> and retention of editors to the project as a whole and thus is directly
>>> relevant to the WMF. We have had issues with how some admins treat new
>>> editors to the movement and it seems we also have issues with how some of
>>> our long standing editors are dealt with specifically by Arbcom. If we base
>>> our decisions on isolated behavioral matters exclusively without taking
>>> into account content issues or the contribution histories of the editors in
>>> question this institution will make bad decisions for the project and the
>>> movement as a whole.
>>>
>>> --
>>> James Heilman
>>> MD, CCFP-EM, Wikipedian
>>> _______________________________________________
>>>
>> Are you suggesting that the WMF, or the Wikimedia community, should impose
>> or agitate for a policy on the English Wikipedia of immunizing prolific
>> contributors from conduct policies?
>>
>> I'm not sure that would have your intended effect on retention. It has been
>> as commonly argued, on Wikipedia and elsewhere, that we are already too lax
>> on vested contributors when it comes to conduct policy... and that this
>> veterans' privilege contributes to a sometimes poisonous atmosphere that
>> damages new editor recruitment and retention.
>>
>> What might be more useful is the development of better tools to support
>> editors in difficult and important subject areas, better community
>> engagement in those areas, and a mechanism to intervene before the
>> battleground ethos overtakes otherwise sterling contributors.
>>