On 2016-02-22 10:31, Erik Moeller wrote:
2016-02-22 1:14 GMT-08:00 Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ru:
Absolutely. This is absolutely what happened. At some point I had to state that if FLOW gets introduced on all talk pages I would stop using talk pages. I was replied that they are sorry but this is my choice.
Our early communications approach about Flow was terrible, it is true, and I take responsibility for not handling it better. I saw some messages that made me cringe, but I didn't step in to say "This is not how we want to do things". I'm sorry. As for my own comms style when I was around the wikis, I think people have often found it arrogant and thereby offputting. I've learned over the years that folks who are external to the community are often naturally better at this. It's tempting as a (formerly very active) community member to draw on your own expertise and hopes to the point that you're no longer listening, or seen to be listening.
I believe Flow-related communications improved significantly later on, but by that time a lot of bridges had already been burned^Wnuked from orbit. I think this early history significantly impacted perception especially in the English Wikipedia community, to the point that raising the name of the project immediately triggers lots of people in that community. At the same time, the more proactive and careful approach later fostered some use cases, like the Catalan Wikipedia converting its entire Village Pump over:
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Hi Erik,
thank for your reply. I also fully agree that communication over FLOW was considerably, drastically improved, making it possible to introduce trials at other projects, e.g. on Wikidata. This is exactly what I meant yesterday when I said that things became much better in 2015 from my perspective as a volunteer.
Cheers Yaroslav