Phillipe wrote in part:
I trust the people and the process. I wish I could find a way to share that
trust in such a way that it would be adopted by more. Maybe you have to live it to develop it, but these are talented staff making hard decisions. No doubt they will err some - but it’s not because they didn’t try everything they know to get it right.
When I sent my first email on all this, I tried to be as trusting and open as possible. But something troubled me greatly and I have still not seen any hypotheticals or specifics to address it.
In the past, as I understood it, there was a null set of things that could be done by someone that would justify Office taking action like this and wouldn't result in a lifetime permanent ban.
Everything else, to my knowledge, was safe to handle somewhere between privately in Arbcom and normally on-Wiki.
The combination of "Something Office needed to do" and "It's only for a year" breaks my head and my heart. There obviously has to be an explanation here. If that's not really an empty set of things that Office could need to do in this manner and might not result in permanent bans, then Office and the Foundation staff really really owe the community a clear explanation of the criteria used to determine that.
I should not be sitting here days later wondering even what category of problem this could be in that resulted in the action.
I don't need this answered today, but it does need to get answered. The difference between a court which sometimes has to act in secret and a Star Chamber is that people can tell what the rules are for the court that sometimes has to act in secret. Either Office are acting like a court that sometimes has to act in secret, or Office and En.Wikipedia do in fact have a catastrophic problem. We need to know the parameters.
-george
On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 5:02 PM Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me wrote:
On Wed, Jun 12, 2019 at 4:20 PM Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
Philippe moved on, so the easy solution - put him in charge of everything - isn't going to work.
I laughed. Thank you for this. But remember, I was in front of Arbcomm for a not too dissimilar case, being accused of overreaching and an unhelpful response and tone (false, true and true, in that order). I learned from my mistakes. More importantly, I hope (and believe) that the WMF learned from my mistakes.
The people on the T&S team are neither dumb nor disconnected. Quite the opposite. I hired and worked with a couple of them and know them to be talented, thoughtful and deliberate. I know Katherine to be the same.
On the basis of that “insider” knowledge - and that is truly all the insider knowledge that I have here - I trust that there is more here that I do not and can not know.
I trust the people and the process. I wish I could find a way to share that trust in such a way that it would be adopted by more. Maybe you have to live it to develop it, but these are talented staff making hard decisions. No doubt they will err some - but it’s not because they didn’t try everything they know to get it right.
I wish we could put away the pitchforks - and also (on the wmf side) make ourselves available and open to listening and sharing whatever we can - if there is anything and try like hell to deescalate this thing.
Or give me time to go buy more popcorn. One or the other.
Philippe
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-- Philippe Beaudette philippe@beaudette.me _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe