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

[Craig Franklin]

Upon reading Gayle's response, and reflecting on some of the comments I
made on Saturday night, I have come to the conclusion that some of the
things I said may have come across as a little harsh and condescending.
 While that was my intention (my point was that "sometimes the community
can bite, so you have to watch your fingers while interacting with them!"),
I think that what I said could quite easily have come across as
patronising.  This wasn't my intent, but I sincerely and unreservedly
apologise to Gayle if this was how it was taken and if my words caused
anyone any distress.

Later, after I have dinner, I'm going to respond with a post to analyse
what went wrong and offer some positive suggestions to how I think these
situations can be avoided in the future, but the positive suggestion I am
going to take for myself at this point is Florence's excellent advice to
step back and let people explain themselves *before* I jump down their
throat.

Cheers,
Craig


On 13 May 2013 18:02, Fae <faewik at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 13 May 2013 08:18, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 2:03 AM, James Alexander <jamesofur at gmail.com
> >wrote:
> > That's a bit relative, James.  The active folk on this mailing list make
> > for a pretty good cross section of thoughts/feelings/opinions of the
> > movement.  I've refrained from this discussion and will continue to do so
> > on specifics, because it's politics and that's not something I do on
> > Wikipedia/Wikimedia.
>
> On this, I have watched this thread with interest. I started following
> it when sitting in a chapter board meeting all day on Saturday. From
> the outset I knew I would not want to make any specific comment and
> get sucked into another dramah, I have too big a pile of these already
> anyway.
>
> There are lessons to be learned here. I continue to hope that the WMF
> can find a way of learning from these experiences, particularly if
> they set a long term pattern, in addition to answering the specific
> questions about this incident. For me, I certainly have learned that
> for the other organizations I am involved with that control wikis and
> have the wonderful luxury of working through the good will of unpaid
> volunteer admins and bureaucrats, the policies that apply should only
> change with careful and recorded consultation, even if I am personally
> sure that there are very clear legal or excellent good and important
> or urgent governance reasons to make changes.
>
> For those on Monday morning finding a little egg left on their faces,
> perhaps it is time to brew some freshly ground coffee, make some hot
> buttered toast and turn this into a productive breakfast? Stay mellow.
> ;-)
>
> PS I'm not attempting to claim any high ground here, so before anyone
> points it out, yes I'm pretty darn flawed myself. Sometimes I do learn
> from mistakes though, I have a lifetime of foolishness to regret and
> learn from.
>
> Cheers,
> Fae
> --
> faewik at gmail.com http://j.mp/faewm
> Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae
>
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