h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Well, that's a start.

I disgree. You did misrepresent me.

My opinion of you has not really changed much at all. That is why I never responded to your offer to use you as some sort of intermediary or advocate. I don't believe you are capable of representing my views and never did - from my own observations of how you seemed to me to be indiscriminately approving of the staff. As such I wouldn't expect you to understand how they have been behaving badly or the importance of fixing it.

I was a committed(?), persistant and helpful volunteer. The staff chose to prevent me from being a volunteer. I am still relatively committed and persistent (despite the site problems) but you just don't happen to like or appreciate the way in which I am still trying to help the site.

Where I agree with you is with the "not turning a blind eye or backing down" when I can see something which is very wrong and needs to be fixed for the benefit of all those who aren't lazy, evil or merely a waste of space. I was going to stop at just saying "all" there, but then I realised that there are a few "wrong-uns" who don't appreciate good things and had to come up with a way of describing them. Mort seemed to be wanting me to just go away and stop bothering people (or at least wondering why I didn't), which is also the impression I get from the staff. However, to do so would be morally/ethically wrong (at least for as long as I can put up with the wrong-uns here). Most of you should be familiar with the quote/paraphrase "all that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing". You may regard that as an extreme case but I believe it characterises the situation here.

"You did misrepresent me."

Not intentionally. Good form would have been to disagree and clarify your points. You've done the equivalent of a less polite 'that's not what I meant' without the explanation of what you did mean.

"My opinion of you has not really changed much at all. That is why I never responded to your offer to use you as some sort of intermediary or advocate."

I just offered to listen to what you had to say, that you might have felt unsafe in saying onsite, in a confidential environment. Now you're angry at me for allegedly not paying attention. I've finished the backlog now and still don't see one defined thing you'd like solved the most.

"I don't believe you are capable of representing my views and never did - from my own observations of how you seemed to me to be indiscriminately approving of the staff."

There's plenty that happens that I don't like. I jut have a different method of dealing with it, and it's so far proved fairly successful. I do not indiscriminately agree with TPTB - take Conflict Moderation for example.

"The staff chose to prevent me from being a volunteer."

In my eyes, your angriness towards other Researchers and frequent agressive denouncement of the way things were/are did not fit in with your position as a volunteer. I might be wrong, but that's how it looks to me. Maybe you left them with little real choice.

"Mort seemed to be wanting me to just go away and stop bothering people (or at least wondering why I didn't), which is also the impression I get from the staff."

I think he wondered why you weren't going to settle down, and try again calmly at making things better. You may be familiar with the saying: 'If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.'

Whoami?

You've got the order of events the wrong way round, Whoami (by not following the dates on the backlog or even remembering that you were there before it became a backlog).

By removing me from the volunteer schemes they removed the additional restriction stopping me from telling the truth about them under the pretence of false politeness in which some people here indulge. It isn't sincere and it isn't fooling everyone. Removing me from the volunteer schemes also prevented me from trying and trying again with the quiet campaign. Trying and trying again on site with other issues (eg mp295 if you still want a non-CA one) has also proven ineffective when the staff either can't or don't want to understand even when other researchers post to say that they do and think it would be a good idea. A strike obviously wouldn't work, constructive dismissal is already operated by the staff, polite suggestion has been demonstrated not to work against wilful rather than honest misunderstanding. That only seems to leave controversy.

PS Mort is a girl/woman (or at least she claims to be which is good enough for me).

SEF, you skipped responding to my post. I was really looking forward to some searing comments...

Anyway, it seems that 2 people are against the ombudsmen idea, and no one but me has spoken out in favor of it. So, if anyone IS in favor of it, maybe they should just mention that, otherwise I'll drop it.

thanks,
dave

who's running this and act?

Here is a link to a site with a copy of the joke I mentioned. I've seen it formatted better elsewhere but this will do (plus there are some bonus Unix ones).

http://www.zheda.org/jokes.html

SEF's experience (see post 684) is pretty much what I have observed happening to most of the vocal researchers who won't just lie down and shut up.

typically in any controversial thread commenting on the bad behaviour of the italics, you see a few researchers receiving this sort of treatment.

it is this sort of behaviour that I am trying to get them to acknowledge, and then change.

it has been happening since the site came back from rupert with just mark and peta, and while the number of italics has expanded, the general behavior of the people using the h2g2 editors account and certain italics has not noticably improved in this area (although mark was getting better before he left).

all I am asking for is that if the italics are under the impression that they are professionals, who are running the site, then they act like it.

not much to ask realy, is it?

I think an ombudsmen might be a good way to point out when/if the italics really are or are not acting unprofessional.

dave

dakaCO:

How would that be different from right now?

Right now, if the staff act unprofessionally to the detriment of a particular user, several things can happen:

1. The user simply leaves quietly and doesn't use the site again.
2. The user laments privately but says nothing onsite and continues using the site.
3. The user complains about it, perhaps with the backing of some friends.

Now - add an ombudsman to that situation. In 3, there are presumably already at least one and probably several people complaining. The ombuds would just be one more. So, the ONLY thing you achieve is some publicity for cases 1 & 2, which may otherwise have gone unremarked.

However, this assumes that someone actively brings the case to the ombudsman's attention. Since by definition the user apparently doesn't want a fuss, they're hardly likely to do it. The staff are unlikely to make a rod for their own backs by telling the ombuds about every little spat. So how do they get their information? It would be a full time job stalking the staff on site, and quite difficult (although not impossible... ) to tap all their email correspondence.

And after all that, you don't change the staff behaviour, because the ombudsman is powerless.

Unprofessional staff behaviour doesn't need a designated person to point it out.

H.

Well, the ombudsmen would be independent. So if a user were complaining, and the ombudsmen thought that user were wrong, s/he could point that out. That might settle some things right off the bat, take some heat off the italics. Now, if the italics have to deal with a lower number of complaints, and they regard the ombudsmen as fair/independent, then maybe when the ombudsmen does "rule" against the italics they would take it more seriously - much more seriously than the random aggrieved user.

dave

Reviving a discussion which may or may not be in some way relevant at this time.

Yes and this post may or may not be relevant.

From my admittedly minimal experience of PR I'd say I'm loving it. I pushed people to be really honest about their take on what I wrote and I've been busy re-writing it with great pleasure in the meantime. It's about an attitude. For me I want to do the best work I can when it comes to something creative, so rather than view input as criticism, I view it with gratitude. People taking the trouble to read what I wrote and helping me to make it much much better - well hopefully .

It can be a completely civilised affair of creating something with the help of others.