Pointless status changes which don't improve our issue tracking but
predictably upset people are definitely provocative in nature and
therefore trolls, whatever the intention behind them (which is not my
interest to investigate). I suspect there might be some linguistic issue
here; "troll" is sometimes used to refer to a single post or act, in
which case the judgement doesn't automatically extend to the author as
an indication of a general pattern.
That said, it could be worthwhile to go beyond individual incidents and
listen to people who express discomfort. There is a wide perception that
WMF employees are the main source of frustration and exclusion of
contributors in our technical community (probably for mere statistical
reasons: they spend a lot of hours in them and cannot just walk away
when their positive energies are exhausted, unlike volunteers).
Unprofessional and unproductive behaviour can often be caused by stress
or other problems at work, which everyone in WMF should help their
colleagues to address. I have a feeling that WMF employees don't get the
help they need to get better.
The victims are predictably the weakest contributors, mostly volunteers
like User:Ruakh (Ran), who registered only one week ago. I hope Ruakh
will be offered an apology for being caught in the crossfire.
Federico
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