On 15/06/2014 16:51, Pete Forsyth wrote:
English Wikipedia is seeing a shift in how many longtime banned users are
regarded, commanding substantial valuable attention from WMF trustees, staff, and volunteers. This has been brought about largely by a single individual, whose megaphone was his ability to trade on the new Executive Director's name. Instead of addressing that ... How do you think that should have been addressed? And what is the 'shift' you are referring to? I think Wil Sinclair's felt that 'longtime banned users' are regarded rather as lepers or pariahs or monsters by those who call themselves 'the community' and was surprised when he talked to them that some of them are not monsters. That was a welcome shift for many of us (I am a longtime banned user, as I am sure you all know, and have been called a 'troll' by some of the people on this list. Sinclair's arrival was a breath of fresh air, and it was great to see the effect. It was a bit like having been in the trenches for a very long time and having got into the habit of lobbing grenades over the side from time to time, and just generally having got used to things being that way. Wil might have been naive (or was he?) but at least he was questioning the status quo, and perhaps it was like someone suggesting we get out of the trenches and have Christmas dinner in no man's land. (This was First World War, some time before Godwin). So Wil brought about _something_. Whether that turns into anything valuable, remains to be seen. Ed _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
