[Wikimedia-l] Attention needed for Croatian Wikipedia issue

[Tony Souter]

This is a sadly common pattern among smaller WMF sites: a single editor or a group of self-supporting editors gains a foothold in the power structure and abuses the trust we put in admins. Just as in real life, this is typically accompanied by a xenophobic push, and a snowballing effect that ensures a grip on power. 

This degradation of the original wiki ethic is all too evident in at least one of the smaller English-language sites, so just what we might expect to find if we were to lift the linguistic veil over the many small sites in other languages makes one's spine shiver.

Per Nathan, yes, specifics need to be stated, and as far as possible without emotion ... just the facts, and as briefly as possible. 

Understandably, the Foundation will try to stay out of any community "dispute" unless it becomes so toxic it can't be ignored in an interwiki sense. However, I think there's a role for WMF community relations staff to advise distressed parties and to be made aware of major conflicts on WMF sites – aside from anything else, we have yet to see legal action by a party who claims to be injured by other editors on a site, and that's something we would all like to forestall.

Tony

 








On 29/10/2013, at 5:12 AM, Nathan wrote:

> Hi Dalibor,
> 
> Could you describe what type of aid you are looking for, and how you think
> it fits with the overall governing ethos of Wikimedia projects? (For
> example, if you ask for WMF staff to intervene, would you argue that the
> WMF can and should intervene in project disputes when one side makes a
> request?).
> 
> Thanks,
> Nathan
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list
> Wikimedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request at lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>