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

[MZMcBride]

Itzik Edri wrote:
>Can we please give time to the Foundation to response and express their
>side before everyone starts to attack them? I think we had enough of that
>on Internal-l.
>
>After the first response, or at least 24h, I will understand everyone
>feelings about that. (And right now I'm also don't agree or understand
>WMF's decision, but I'm waiting to hear them first).

I agree that it would be nice to have a full explanation from the
Wikimedia Foundation here (particularly from Philippe and Gayle, who have
apparently conspired).

But I'm not sure I agree that time is needed to evaluate what has
happened. There was certainly no wait before users were stripped of their
user rights. The lack of any emergency makes this rash series of actions
even more upsetting and confusing.

Wikimedia _is_ its community. When a few staff members start to kick out
the community (from the blog, from Bugzilla, from volunteer sysadminning),
it's a pretty awful situation that needs to be immediately addressed, in
my opinion. The alternative is that most volunteers will simply go away.
While that may seem like a victory to certain staff members, I wonder when
they'll realize that it's these same volunteers that keep the projects
running. When the dedicated and trusted volunteers leave, their (paid)
jobs will soon follow. Wikimedia simply isn't sustainable without trusted
volunteers. Slapping them in the face does what?

MZMcBride