[Foundation-l] Transparency

Wed Jan 9 23:16:29 UTC 2008

On Jan 9, 2008 5:28 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com> wrote:
> I wouldn't read too much into the ravings of a rogue admin - I don't
> think his views are particularly representative of any significant
> portion of the community.

I would disagree. In general, many members of the sister projects have
a strong sense of disconnect and disenfranchisement when it comes to
the WMF. This is especially true of the smaller projects and the
smaller non-english projects. The lines of communication are virtually
non-existant for these small projects. If it appears that the only
time the WMF cares about a small project is when something is wrong
and "action" needs to be taken. Then, you have all sorts of people
descending on your project, trying to make all sorts of decisions on
your behalf. en.wikibooks had a big problem with this in the past
where wikipedians were trying to influence our deletion discussions en
masse, and I know other small projects have similar tales. If this
user has some animosity towards the greater WMF community, I have a
certain amount of sympathy for him.

Of course, that still doesnt give him the right to ban good-faith
users, or make all sorts of unilateral decisions without community
discussion, etc.  The two issues are basically unrelated.

--Andrew Whitworth