Johan (WMF)

"I despair at times, of course, like almost everyone else who spends a fair chunk of their life thinking about the wikis"

RE: "I despair at times, of course, like almost everyone else who spends a fair chunk of their life thinking about the wikis"

Hi Johan (WMF),

I too despair at times, but for a very different reason than you do. I despair because the Wikimedia Movement has created an online world where contributors such as myself are prevented from communicating with other members of the community. I do not wish to do anything illegal, nor anything against the principles of the community, such as AGF, or civility, but that does not seem to matter to the Admins who have blocked me on 3 different wikis (enwp, simple-wiki and META).

I, like you, spend a fair chunk of my life thinking about the wikis created by the wikmedia movement, and have a lot to say about your essays such as:

• The patroller's dilemma

but I am not allowed to participate in discussion at META, even though I have made over 100K contributions to various wikis, most of which have (still) not been deleted. I am hoping that my attempt to communicate with you here will not seal my wiki-fate, as it seems that global functionaries are hot on my heels, every way I go. Ottawahitech (talk) 17:36, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

Hi Ottawahitech, thank you.

Unblocking on community-run wikis is something the Wikimedia Foundation can't decide on, I'm afraid – the only ones with the power to do so are the admins on those wikis. It's outside our area to overrule local communities on this. Johan (WMF) (talk) 22:36, 4 February 2024 (UTC)

@Johan (WMF), I know that the Foundation cannot get involved in local blocking of individual contributors. This is not at all the reason I contacted you.

This is the reason I did:

"I despair because the Wikimedia Movement has created an online world where contributors such as myself are prevented from communicating with other members of the community" I am not the first or last person who is shunned by the collective. There are tens of thousands of others who have been blocked and are not able to contribute content, knowledge, opinions, and so on to various wiki-projects. Many of the people who have been blocked are not vandals, spammers, or copyright infringers. Many are blocked without public open community discussion but by one individual functionary, without any regard to the length of time or the contributions they have made.

Pretending that all functionaries are capable of disseminating justice with no training/experience//natural ability/background/or prior contributions, and assuming that every person given the tools automatically acts in good-faith is at the root of this problem. Many of the projects currently give the so-called mop to anyone who shows up at a Request for Adminship (RFA) and asks for the tools. No questions are asked, few in the community are aware of these "elections", few in the community know the background of those who participate and cast "Support" votes and if there are any rules regarding how many must vote to form "consensus" they are buried somewhere in Walls of Text that no one reads or can read. At the end of a 7-day period a new admin starts deleting content and blocking others in the that community without any apparent oversight by other admins who are too busy to pay attention.

I am sure that others are aware of the situation I am describing. So why am I the only person who says this openly? Ottawahitech (talk) 18:43, 6 February 2024 (UTC)

@Johan (WMF): Just to let you know you have been mentioned at:

Wikibooks:Wikibooks:Reading_room/General#Report_of_the_U4C_Charter_ratification_and_U4C_Call_for_Candidates_now_available. Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 00:32, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Looks like you are not getting too much mail here, so I guess I will not be accused of badgering you, I hope? Just to continue my previous line of thought:

Nowadays I participate mostly on the English wikiquote. I have been a regular there since 2020, and have managed, barely, not to get blocked, yet. This is very important to me because it appears that if one gets blocked on more than 3 wikimedia projects, one automatically gets globally locked by the Stewards, I think?

Earlier today I wiki-thanked a user on the English Wikiquote for a contribution they made some years ago. I do a lot of thanking, and have a lengthy section on my user page explaining my habit. Since I distinctly remembered thanking this user before, I wanted to see when and how many times I did this, so I went to their contributions page, and was promptly reminded that this user is globally locked and froze, thinking I may have done something which is taboo. Thinking a little more about this, I realized that the globally-locked user cannot even see my thanks because they can no longer log in, I think? How unkind us, as a community, to punish in this way someone who has made tens of thousands contributions to wikimedia. Just my $.02.

Please let me know if you do not want to hear from me anymore. Cheers, Ottawahitech (talk) 20:06, 3 November 2024 (UTC)

Hey Ottawahitech, it's not that I mind hearing from you as much as that it's outside of my remit: The Wikimedia communities (not the Wikimedia Foundation) typically handles these things, and the few times the Foundation does something it's the Trust and Safety team, which belongs to a different department than I do. Since this is typically a matter for the Wikimedia editing community, others would be better suited than I am to discuss this matter – no one would appreciate me stepping in where I don't have the mandate to act in my capacity as a Foundation employee. If you tell me which user, I might be able to better guide you to where to have this conversation.

(Or if you ever get across issues like these on Swedish Wikipedia, where I'm an admin and checkuser in my volunteer capacity, I'd be happy to be of service.) Johan (WMF) (talk) 20:23, 3 November 2024 (UTC)