[Wikimedia-l] Thoughts on Admin Rights on WMF Wiki (and other things)

[Bence Damokos]

(typo fix)


On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 10:58 AM, Bence Damokos <bdamokos at gmail.com> wrote:

> Personally I think this line of the conversation (people resigning/fired)
> is taking the situation a bit too far.
> At the least not having volunteers administer the WMF's wiki is just
> punishment already.
>
> It seems that the WMF is unlikely to change its policy, so the best they
> can do to heal the hurt caused by their action is to apologise (and perhaps
> explain their reasons), which they have done.
> If they had restored the admin rights, that would have healed some part of
> the hurt but not all of it, and the affected volunteers would still have
> the option to "punish" the WMF by not caring about their wiki (i.e. the
> same situation the WMF has chosen for itself). Apart from this tit-for-tat
> satisfaction and giving enough time to heal and restore the trusts and
> relationships, I do not think that further debating this decision would
> lead to any good results.
>
> I have the feeling that we will not get more satisfactory answers as the
> line of questioning going on creates a situation where the WMF can only
> defend themselves - I am sure they have shared their best arguments that
> can be published and the harder they are pushed the more likely they are
> going to scramble to make up further reasons (instead of either changing
> the decision or admitting that they had no better reasons) a situation that
> is unlikely to improve the situation in the way the questioners hope.[1]
>
> I would recommend for those personally hurt by the WMF's decision to
> accept the WMF's apology, stay in the movement but if they feel any
> satisfaction in it, mete out the punishment of not caring about the WMF's
> wiki, and move on. The people working at the WMF are multidimensional
> persons, one mistake does not define them and I am sure the existing
> relationships will be healed through other channels of interaction and
> working together.
>
> For those of us who were not hurt (this time), I think it would be helpful
> if we moved the discussions towards more constructive areas: for example,
> helping come up with some guidelines on community-WMF interactions,
> including suggestions on best timing of news and the appropriate level and
> venue of consultations before major decisions, and making sure this kind of
> training is provided to WMF employees.
>
> Best regards,
> Bence
>
>
> [1] It is just an intuition, but I fear that this property of some
> questions (their pre-coded "response") can be lowering the quality of some
> of the other community review discussions (FDC, GAC, AffCom) that rely on
> the Q&A format.
>
>