Upon reading Gayle's response, and reflecting on some of the comments I made on Saturday night, I have come to the conclusion that some of the things I said may have come across as a little harsh and condescending. While that was my intention (my point was that "sometimes the community can bite, so you have to watch your fingers while interacting with them!"), I think that what I said could quite easily have come across as patronising. This wasn't my intent, but I sincerely and unreservedly apologise to Gayle if this was how it was taken and if my words caused anyone any distress.
Later, after I have dinner, I'm going to respond with a post to analyse what went wrong and offer some positive suggestions to how I think these situations can be avoided in the future, but the positive suggestion I am going to take for myself at this point is Florence's excellent advice to step back and let people explain themselves *before* I jump down their throat. Cheers, Craig On 13 May 2013 18:02, Fae <[email protected]> wrote: > On 13 May 2013 08:18, Keegan Peterzell <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Mon, May 13, 2013 at 2:03 AM, James Alexander <[email protected] > >wrote: > > That's a bit relative, James. The active folk on this mailing list make > > for a pretty good cross section of thoughts/feelings/opinions of the > > movement. I've refrained from this discussion and will continue to do so > > on specifics, because it's politics and that's not something I do on > > Wikipedia/Wikimedia. > > On this, I have watched this thread with interest. I started following > it when sitting in a chapter board meeting all day on Saturday. From > the outset I knew I would not want to make any specific comment and > get sucked into another dramah, I have too big a pile of these already > anyway. > > There are lessons to be learned here. I continue to hope that the WMF > can find a way of learning from these experiences, particularly if > they set a long term pattern, in addition to answering the specific > questions about this incident. For me, I certainly have learned that > for the other organizations I am involved with that control wikis and > have the wonderful luxury of working through the good will of unpaid > volunteer admins and bureaucrats, the policies that apply should only > change with careful and recorded consultation, even if I am personally > sure that there are very clear legal or excellent good and important > or urgent governance reasons to make changes. > > For those on Monday morning finding a little egg left on their faces, > perhaps it is time to brew some freshly ground coffee, make some hot > buttered toast and turn this into a productive breakfast? Stay mellow. > ;-) > > PS I'm not attempting to claim any high ground here, so before anyone > points it out, yes I'm pretty darn flawed myself. Sometimes I do learn > from mistakes though, I have a lifetime of foolishness to regret and > learn from. > > Cheers, > Fae > -- > [email protected] http://j.mp/faewm > Guide to email tags: http://j.mp/mfae > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
