On Tue, 4 Feb 2020 at 08:57, Chris Keating <chriskeatingw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In part this is because people were very angry about the issue at the time, > and that anger was dealt with very poorly at the time. > While MediaViewer's introduction wasn't prepared appropriately and superprotect was an inconsiderate, rushed and authoritarian solution to stop the wheel-warring, it is a fundamental issue of the community that such disagreements are always dealt with anger, combative actions and rushed decisions. The parallels with last year's Fram debacle are strong both on WMF's and the communities' side: no conversation, drama, wheel-warring again, immediately. This is how "collegial discussion" of differences should happen? I see this as a fundamental issue, that's strongly related to why so much harassment (and lesser forms of incivility) are part of our everyday editing experience (I'm talking about less-known members of the community, who aren't protected by their established status, not us). Those differences can't be dealt with anger, but only with level-headed, honest and just moderation. On Tue, 4 Feb 2020 at 11:23, Ziko van Dijk <zvand...@gmail.com> wrote: > In the Strategy discussions, I have experienced and witnessed several times > that defenders of the "strategy synthesis/recommendations" do not want to > talk about an issue. They say things like: > With experience in projects on this scale, one can understand that not all questions can be answered. While I wish the working group members would have engaged more in the discussions (kudos to the few, who did, thank you for showing an example to follow), it is very de-motivating to read negative comments written in a matter of minutes, that reject months of work with the strike of a few buttons, without making any effort to think about solutions to the problem and realizing how hard (impossible, in fact) it is to implement solutions that satisfy every individual's every need and concern. This is disrespectful to the hard work put into these recommendations and damaging to the motivation of the volunteers and staff members, who gave their time out of goodwill and -faith, and takes away from their time and energy to improve the recommendations. What I find disheartening about this is that most of the negative comments come from users, who opposed the 2017 Movement Direction <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Strategy/Wikimedia_movement/2017/Direction/Endorsement#Oppose>, which is the basis for the current recommendations. Although the first name is especially *not* representative of the "not constructive" comments, I would hope that who don't understand or share this vision, would express their "concerns" with less drama, respecting the work of those, who can imagine a future with a more friendly and diverse editing culture. Imagine, how helpful it would be if I were to approach users with authority, to ask them to assume good faith and treat newcomers with respect. It would cause some discord, which would turn into angry responses, which would eventually result in my de facto ban. As it did on enwiki. Fortunately, the consultations are a more civil atmosphere and there is space for negative comments, to a certain extent. > * "this feels like défa vu" * "you are not constructive" > * "we must look forward, not backward" > * "we don't want to talk about details now, we leave that for later" > I don't know exactly what was implied with "déja vu" and fortunately, I haven't met the last response, that I strongly disagree with. The concern about some feedback not being constructive is, however, very valid, that I've reflected on above. Responses that give alternative solutions, highlight questions worth focusing on and generally *add* something to the proposals, can be incorporated into the proposals and many of those were included in the new iterations. The primary purpose is to incorporate the feedback and it is understandable, that there's no capacity to respond to everything and even feedback that found its way into the recommendations, won't necessarily be answered. That's how projects of this size work. Obviously, constructive comments will be answered first - that's rewarding and helpful to the process -, rather than effortless "I don't agree with this" responses, which is in fact not constructive, but very similar to the stonewalling <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Status_quo_stonewalling> patterns that often weigh heavily on discussions in the community. It is understandable, that every change awakens our basic fear of unpredictability. The future is unpredictable, what we can do is to give our best in manifesting every change. Instead of theorizing about what might be the result of the recommendations. To move forward we need to explore new possibilities, and if it's not giving the expected results, we need to move even further, until the desired results are accomplished. The best result is seldom the first result. We could learn from the success of SpaceX about how to achieve great things by moving fast, learning from the mistakes and moving on. Kind regards Aron _______________________________________________ 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-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
