> > The other side of that coin is that when there are systemic problems that > necessarily reduce in stress or even abusive treatment of administrators, > you ought to be identifying and correcting that. Right now, you have > exactly > such a situation. Working toward identifying and correcting whatever > cultural aspects of Wikipedia community compound rather than relieve the > stress and suffering caused to administrators doing their jobs is an > important priority not to be "crowded out" by the thinking that we need > to > learn to deal with oppressive bureaucracy or a culture of mob justice. > > With that in mind, there is a diplomatic pitfall to the approach you > suggest. In same cases, focusing on helping administrators learn to "cope > with the pressure" inherent to the jobs they've volunteered to do is > going > to come off patronizing. I certainly heard it that way when people made > this > kind of suggestion in real-time, because it was another example of > someone > telling me what *I* needed to be doing differently. I didn't feel like > the > problem was that I needed to learn to accept that I was being treated > badly; > it may well have been better for my peace of mind if I had, but that is > not > a solution that is going to help the project. > > So from a strategic perspective (retaining human resources) it's > perilous, > but also it might lead you to develop blind spots to real and solvable > problems. You don't want to get into a situation where any time a problem > comes up you recall that "Stressful situations are inevitable, we need to > [take a break and cool down / come back later / apply whatever other > therapeutic technique we've prescribed]" because then you'll not do what > you > need to do to fix a serious cultural problem that necessarily gives rise > to > administrator "flame out". > > My skin was already plenty thick. A lot of the people who have burned out > or > resigned as a result of this were experienced editors who knew what it > was > like to be under pressure for making a decision someone didn't like. You > can't do everything right, but you can recognize problems and take steps > toward addressing them. Helping people learn to cope with stress may be > one > prong of your attack, but it can't be the only one -- not here. > > - causa sui >
Yes, we need to address the problems, not blame the victims and help them cope with nightmares. Fred _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
