An experienced Wikimedian who is involved with more Foundation-level stuff told me today that he thought he really didn’t know “how the English Wikipedia works anymore”. I was inclined to say the same thing about myself because it seems that I have pulled back out of Wikipedia itself and into the Foundation stuff too (that is, Wikimedia rather than Wikipedia) - but via a different route. In general experienced users who have been around for a long time have in recent years pulled out of editing to a great degree due to the fact that things are getting more and more unpleasant down in the article editing bazaar. People fight more, rules are tossed about. This is due partly to the steady growth of Wikipedia in active users and articles, but I get the impression those who wish to do the community harm are more prominent. The other reason is that sane minds are generally needed at the Foundation level. So they all gather up there, and thus cabals inevitably form.

The above is the usual for people who were involved in the encyclopedia long in the past. For myself I seem to be in the same negative position of not really knowing what is going on for a lot of the time but I got there a different way. I was never a proper article writer because I don’t know a lot to add that isn’t there. I don’t really have the patience to research and source long and complicated articles. But when I started out I still really wanted to help with Wikipedia because it is something good that can really benefit humankind (and other things we may come into contact with, due to our improved education, such as the environment on this planet). So I got into vandal-fighting and mediation and IRC (and then freenode staff through this). I then began to prepare myself to run for adminship, as my intention was to help administrate the project as I thought I could really help here. At this point I began to move into Foundation matters, finding it more interesting. And then I realised I no longer knew what was going on over on Wikipedia - I found myself spread way too thin as can happen and so started cutting back on what I do, severing connections.

So as it stands now, I look back on working on the English Wikipedia itself with nostalgia in a way. I knew friends back then who now have little time for the project due to real life commitments and I miss simply plugging away at tasks. So, the answer is arguably just dropping back in and doing them. This I would like to do, but I simply don’t have the time with crazy volumes of reading material stemming from my e-mail inbox and elsewhere, and jobs that need to get done that I have responsibility for - or so it seems. And yet I still sometimes find myself floating between things, not sure what to do. I’m no longer really comfortable in what I am doing, and it makes me less productive and useful to Wikimedia. However, I will keep going, and hope that I slot down into a niche where I can trundle along

Well, today has been pretty harrowing. I’ve been addressed as “Premier Whitton” and asked to step down in various Wikipedia positions, but thus far I’m still alive. For it was today I initiated decisive action to solve a problem I have been aiming to solve for literally months (since I took on the role of IRC Group Contact for Wikimedia). Today, #wikipedia’s access list was cleared of all operators, and a new system has been put in place to try and improve things. Today, the blasted wasteland that was #wikipedia has started the road to recovery. Or so I hope.

A month or so ago I started talking to people about making changes to #wikipedia to make it better. It was prompted by a fellow freenode staffer telling me “you really really need to sort out #wikipedia” and this encouraged me to take some more proactive steps to improve things. Before, it was known as a burnt out wasteland by a lot of Wikimedia’s community, and was avoided. Since the channel is suppose to be helpful to the community, it really wasn’t desirable that there was such a rift between IRC users and those who stuck to other forms of communication. There wasn’t (and isn’t yet, but it’s coming) a sense of continuity between what happened on IRC and what happened on the projects etc.

So, myself and the other group contact, James Forrester, chatted about it. I was pretty out of idea as I recall as I didn’t want to do anything drastic. However, James suggested that we simply clear out the ops list and start again with a new channel leader figure and a deputy. The raional for this was that a previous attempt to establish new guidelines essentially failed because there was no coherent agreement among operators that they were something to be enforced. By removing them and then readding the vast majority (hopefully, if they ask to come back, as we want their skill at the job), we can reaffirm commitment to the same goals (I’d argue it’s more important they are the same than anything else). I had also at this point opened discussion on an internal Wikimedia mailing list that was somewhat calmer than the public ones. Some good feedback was gained. So we formulated a plan, wrote some new guidelines and published them, and as soon as everything was in place I made the changes.

Unsurprisingly, not everyone is happy. However, after fielding things for a bit, I employed a few other ops to keep an eye on things and dissapeared for tea followed by a cracking episode of Dr Who (I’m so proud - I guessed it was The Master five minutes before he said it :D). Coming back, I found the above calls and accusations in my away log. I opted to only look briefly and not read every word, thinking that it’d be pretty repetative. I hope I didn’t ignore too much because, don’t get me wrong here, I want as much input as possible into this process. It is a wiki-based organisation, after all, and therefore we can change things very easily. This brings me on to a criticism I have received, about not allowing much community input. The fact is that Mark, someone involved, posted a link to the draft guidelines a number of days before today (which have since changed very little) and no real comments were made. We therefore went ahead with no communtiy saying it was a bad idea. I’m not sure I could have done much better than this. Of course, the reason I particularly have been targetted for blame is because I was the one with his name on everything. We were aiming to act as a group, honest!

To conclude, I am happy with what is happening now. The channel is looking a lot better. freenode’s staff have been encouraging me on the situation and have said that it’s good to experience the position of being disliked because one can learn from it; I certainly have. But as they point out, as long as I am doing the right thing and am succeeding at it then there is nothing to fear. And, as I say above, all discussion is very much welcome. I may well write to this blog later with the status quo then.