Wow John, this is quite the indictment on not only Steven and Charles, but also the WMAU committee and also the unnamed WMF employee.
Some questions for those involved, but especially to Steven Zhang. 1. Who was consulted at the WMF and had no problem with this decision? 2. As Tony rightly mentions, this list is not within the remit of the WMAU committee, so why is the WMAU committee taking it upon themselves to decide who can or can not be part of this list? 3. Steven, why did you not see fit to consult John on this issue? 4. Steven, why was Tony not advised of this decision? 5. Steven, why was Tony not put on moderation, instead of misusing a tool to all but silence him? Steven, your email is totally laughable, especially the last paragraph. Just because you were, as you threw in John's face on IRC recently in a most infantile way, elected as "President" of the WMAU, I seriously don't know where you get off in acting the way you have been doing as of late. And that paragraph reeks of "you are either with us, or against us" type attitude which only creates more division rather than the stated goal of unity. Being a general pain in the arse is not reason to "kill" or ban someone. For if it was Steven, I seem to recall back in 2010 you were a total pain in the butt in #wikimedia-au IRC channel when you would incessantly and forcefully demand of WMAU to pay for all of your expenses (air fares, hotels, etc) so that you could attend Wikimania in DC, but not only that, but also to pay for expenses so that you could drive across-country from LAX to take in the sights on your way across the country. I don't recall you ever being banned from that channel or other venues? I do remember your incessant demands and comments used to shit me, and others, to no end, but you were never silenced like you are doing here to Tony. I can only say that if you should ever re-RfA on en.wp in the future, that members of that project should take note of what you have done here, and I am certain many of the concerns from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Steven_Zhangwill be prevalent again at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_adminship/Steven_Zhang_2. Steven, care to prove me wrong? Start a RfA now, and see exactly how you will go once links to what you have done As to general community, this is yet more evidence that the AU community is being dictated to by a committee which operates behind closed doors, and which does not want to be inclusive, but rather enforces a "it's my way or the highway" attitude. Absolutely disgraceful. John, given that you were not involved in this and you have integrity, would you care to undo what Steven and Charles done to Tony. Cheers Scotty On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 3:45 PM, John Mark Vandenberg <[email protected]>wrote: > On Sun, Mar 16, 2014 at 1:53 PM, Sam Wilson <[email protected]> wrote: > > Yeah, Hanlon's razor perhaps should be remembered here! :-) Not that I > mean > > to imply any incompetence on the part of the list administrators, but I > do > > imagine that it's more likely that someone's made a mistake here and is > not > > being actively mean. > > Unfortunately Tony's allegations are spot on. > > For background, Nathan Carter handed over the list admin to me in > January 2013 when he needed to shift his load around. I added Charles > Gregory as list admin in October 2013. Without consultation with me, > Steven Zhang was added as list admin. I dont know when. Charles, did > you add Steven as list admin, or was the WMF involved in that? > > I've quickly spoken with Steven about Tony being put on the kill list, > and received confirmation both him and from Charles. They acted as a > majority of list admins, without informing me, but with approval from > the Wikimedia Australia committee and after discussion with a > Wikimedia Foundation staff member. It seems it happened in January, > in response to the emails Tony sent to the list in that month: > http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikimediaau-l/2014-January/003979.html > Steven Zhang was the person responsible for performing the kill list > addition. > > I dont think that Tony's emails warranted this type of response. > Putting a respected member of our community on a kill list will > neither be particularly successful at silencing criticism, nor is the > kill list the appropriate tool - moderation would have been the tool > to use if Tony was being disruptive, and direct private discussion > between Tony and moderators didn't result in a better path forward. > > Typically the kill list is used for spammers and people who are banned > from Wikimedia projects and are being disruptive on the mailing lists. > That does not apply to Tony. > > It is rude to take these types of moderator actions without informing > the person involved, and informing other list admins even after the > fact if the action needed to be taken quickly to maintain decorum on > the list. > > Steven and Charles are a bit vague on the details of how this > happened, so it is possible that not everyone who was consulted did > actually agree to Tony being put on a kill list, and I hope most of > them had envisaged that it was going to be implemented with with > utmost care for a volunteer that they strive to serve and support. I > hope the WMAU committee will give a more detailed explanation of their > involvement in this. To everyone who did knowingly agree to Tony > being put on a kill list: whether for incompetence, bad communication, > or some other excuse - I dont care why - you _should_ be ashamed of > yourselves. > > This is a good time to have someone else, outside of the current > committee, step up to be list admin again so that this list does not > become effectively controlled by Wikimedia Australia, as we've now > seen the organisation will stoop to censorship of this list. > > -- > John Vandenberg > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimediaau-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaau-l >
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