On 8/23/15, Oliver Keyes okeyes@wikimedia.org wrote:
No, because that would be gratuitous and unnecessary language that contributes nothing to the discussion. But if you meant: "really, you're going to suggest, optionally, that people do research before hitting send and consider the possibility that this is not their area of expertise, where it is other peoples'", absolutely.
To be clear; this is not /my/ area of expertise either. This is precisely why I try to make "search for it before commenting on it" a rule I adhere to. But I have seen people I respect and care about end up absurdly worn out by having to explain, again and again, what are (to them) basic things to people who have been fortunate enough to not be in a situation where they have to think about process, or the consequences of power imbalances, or similar subjects, and that is not an outcome I like to contribute to. I imagine it isn't an outcome other people particularly want either. And it is, in and of itself, something that is chilling; if the onus is on the marginalised to explain basic elements of this over and over then it swiftly becomes a game in which winning is too costly on time and energy to play. So I try to google and search and, when I see a proposal that seems like there's a really obvious solution the speaker missed, step back and go: "wait. Maybe it's more complicated than that. I should find out before saying anything".
Well maybe they aren't explaining very good. This is a long thread, I think I've read most of it, its possible I've forgotten something, but - I don't really recall anyone addressing the topic of why a committee is better than the combined group of admins (For the record, I don't think the "admins" would work well for various reasons, I just don't see that its been discussed). Instead of saying its been discussed 50 times, why not link to one of those 50 times? Maybe the person asking the question just missed it. Maybe the person asking the question interpreted the email differently than you, and on a closer examination would be able to see what you mean. Maybe you misremembered the email, and the person's question hasn't been answered. Whatever the case, actually citing the email would allow the conversation to move forward better.
As for googling - google can be somewhat random which documents it returns depending on how you phrase the question. Is it really that much harder to link to whatever argument you think will come up? In this particular instance, searching for "Why should code of conducts not be enforced by admins" and "Why should code of conducts not be enforced by large bodies" which are the most obvious query for Steinsplitter's question, come up with nothing. But even if they did come up with something relavent, linking directly allows people to know for sure which arguments are being talked about, and evaluate them properly.
-- bawolff
On 23 August 2015 at 15:23, Brian Wolff bawolff@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/23/15, Oliver Keyes okeyes@wikimedia.org wrote:
Admins? And who are those? Please build a listing of every admin for every possible technical venue relating to Wikimedia.
While you're at it, we're going to need them to have a shared hivemind so enforcement is consistent between venues. They're also going to need to communicate about sanctions so that behaviour spilling over to multiple venues can be factored in. And while you're doing /that/ please make sure they all have an appropriate protocol for appealing things and passing issues upwards.
Or we could have a committee.
I get that this is a technical environment and we are all, myself included, used to being able to chip in anywhere with some utility. But please have some respect for the people coming up with these ideas. The idea of a code of conduct and an associated committee is coming from smart people, and it did not spring fully-formed from their brow like Athena from Zeus. It came from literal decades of work by many, many other smart people in a vast number of communities that have tried a ton of options. And when we say "why don't we just do obvious_thing_x?" we are demonstrating a total failure to respect the expertise other people have in this sort of process, which is generally /not/ our expertise, and failing to do research to boot. If it helps, imagine that instead of talking to this group about behavioural policies, you were explaining to C.Scott or Subbu why their idea for a parser is overly complicated and they /totally/ don't need to be doing $THING.
So my suggestion - and this is something I have tried to follow myself when I don't understand the point of something in the form "bad things are happening, why don't we do X" is to literally google "why isn't [the obviously simple thing I thought of] a good idea?", and see what smart people have already written. It saves from forcing marginalised individuals to repeat, for the fiftieth time in a thread, why X is a good approach here, and I tend to learn something along the way.
Really, you're going to tell people to STFW on a thread about conduct?
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-- Oliver Keyes Count Logula Wikimedia Foundation
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