[Foundation-l] A Board member's perspective

Tue May 11 22:03:23 UTC 2010

On 11 May 2010 22:48, Stuart West <stuwest at gmail.com> wrote:

> A lot has happened since my email so here's a quick follow-up. I hear the
> concerns many of you have raised on this list and elsewhere. I feel awful
> about them. As Kat said so well, I think there is a big difference between
> the principles the Board agreed to in our statement and the actions taken by
> Jimmy and others.

Thank you.

> I supported the Board statement last week and still support it. I believe
> the presence of materials unambiguously not relevant to our educational
> mission is bad for us as it can alienate people (users, potential new
> volunteers, educators, others) who we need on our side to accomplish our
> mission. I know this is a complex issue.  Many people have thought more
> about the challenges than I have (please read Greg Maxwell's great email for
> some of the history
> http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-May/058081.html). I
> am trying to catch up. I hoped the Board statement would both encourage the
> community to pursue a clean-up drive and also renew community efforts to
> resolve the tough policy issues.

Your message still seems to carry an implicit assumption that there
was an actual problem of such magnitude as to warrant such action -
that you regret the effects of the actions, but not the fact of the
drastic action.

There has been *no evidence whatsoever* presented that there was such
a problem with Commons. No-one has presented any such evidence. I'd
have thought they would have by now.

Stu, is there any evidence? Did you, as a Board member, ask for any,
before or after the actions were taken?

Please present the evidence of a problem so serious it was worth the
obvious effects that would result from the action taken.

If you do not have evidence, then you have grievously slandered the
Commons community, and you need to withdraw the slanders in your first
message - in which you decried the gross failings of the Commons
community - sentence by sentence.

You'll know the apology is sufficient when all the people you
condemned come back.

Please, present the evidence the decision was based on.

- d.