[Wikimedia-l] Go away, community (from WMF wiki at least)

[Craig Franklin]

This sort of tone might be appropriate coming from HR in a bank or
something, but I'm tremendously disappointed that something so tactless and
rude was sent out from a senior officer in the Foundation to its
volunteers.  I know Gayle is a new hire, so I'm assuming good faith that
she wasn't aware that taking this sort of attitude with volunteers would go
down like a lead balloon.

Someone at the WMF needs to take Gayle into an office and patiently explain
to her that the volunteers whose access she just "disabled, effective
immediately" are the same ones that keep the websites that per her salary
going.

Cheers,
Craig Franklin


On 11 May 2013 21:15, K. Peachey <p858snake at gmail.com> wrote:

> This is the email that got sent out to everyone,
>
> ---
> Dear XXX,
> Thank you for your work with the Foundation wiki.  At this time, we
> are formalizing a new requirement, which is that administrator access
> is given only to staff and board.  I am having administrator access to
> accounts that are neither staff or board be disabled, effective
> immediately.
> Sincerely,
> Gayle
> --
> Gayle Karen K. Young
> Chief Talent and Culture Officer
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 415.310.8416
> www.wikimediafoundation.org
> ---
>
> Gayle's response (which was the first time she has edited the wiki in
> ~5 months[2]) seems lacking[1] in general and the subsequent responses
> about knowing what these people do on the wiki
>
> Another interesting fact is that Mz got desysoped first, When you
> would expect it to be done in alphabetically order.
>
> "We've been discussing this for awhile, and the thought is that it's
> ultimately the Foundation's web presence, not the community's web
> presence. A useful parallel to consider might be how userrights are
> given to staffers on the community wikis; they're distributed as and
> when they're needed for a specific task."
>
> Um, Rights for staff on wikis are given out like candy?, although not
> as much thee days but it still happens.
>
> Also, How is the foundation wiki not apart of the community? Has the
> position of the legal department changed? or the boards? just randomly
> changing without any imput or discussions seems utlimately strange.
> since it is actually their wiki (just like everything else that falls
> under the foundation)
>
> [1]. <
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?diff=91857&oldid=91855#Users_stripped_of_rights.3F
> >
> [2]. <
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Special%3AContributions&target=Gyoung
> >
> [3]. <https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Special:Log/rights>
>
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