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

[Deryck Chan]

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.
>

Yes. Because ten years ago the community set WMF's agenda. But nowadays WMF
staff sets the community's agenda and presents them as a done deal. Hurtful
examples from the last year or two are now springing into my mind like a
fountain.

Deryck


> >
> >
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