On Sun, Jun 15, 2014 at 5:19 PM, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
- Vicious, hurtful gossip and speculation about a female executive's
private personal life is acceptable 2) People who point out that this is a ridiculous position are manufacturing "outrage" to fuel drama 3) Recapping the whole sordid situation on a public, international mailing list is appropriate
Agreed with Nathan. Please, gossip privately if you really have to.
Amount of gossips which came to me while I was on my one year break is amazing. OK, I have to say that the unofficial Master of Wikimedia Gossip was unstoppable in telling the stories to me whenever we drank alcohol, but the MWG has the sources and there are plenty of sources in the global community.
While it's unreasonable to ask everybody to refrain from gossip, I urge to make difference between the *private* gossips "he slept in her room during the conference" and "everybody thinks that she should leave her partner". Having in mind few cultural requirements, the first one is mostly harmless and could be positive, while the second one is very harmful.
However, none of those stories have the place on the public mailing list of the Wikimedia movement. Keep it for yourself, while drinking some aromatic ethanol with fellow creatures.
I have one more point to the folk subscribed to this list: If you want to reach *any* a bit more visible position inside of the movement, keep in mind that you will targets of gossip in the same way as you are gossiping now. It's normal that people know about each others' private and embarrassing moments. The way how you influence handling gossips about others is the way how it will be gossiped about you.
Besides that, in relation to Lila and Wil, it's a non-issue. Everybody knows Wil's positions and I have to say that I am thankful to Wil because of his public opening. All of the issues which Wil mentioned are practically dead from the moment when he mentioned them here.