Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2015-11-11/Op-ed

One Sunday afternoon in 2014, without fanfare or advance warning, the Wikimedia Foundation deployed "Superprotect" – a new user privilege that enabled the Foundation's paid staff to overrule elected volunteer administrators. Without pausing to describe what circumstances would merit its use, the Foundation immediately used Superprotect to unilaterally enforce the rollout of the Media Viewer software on the German Wikipedia. Several local communities had questioned Media Viewer’s suitability for broad release. The Foundation forcefully asserted its own authority – a climax in several years of disputes with volunteers over various software features. Then-Trustee Samuel Klein later characterized the move, saying it "opposed our wiki values, distracted the projects, and did not solve any pressing problem."

I was moved to urge the Foundation to remove Superprotect, and to disavow its newly asserted authority. I wrote a letter to this effect, invited others to sign it, and delivered it in September 2014 to the organization’s ten Trustees and top two executives.

The letter’s popularity was substantial and diverse. More than a thousand people have signed it; they hail from dozens of language communities and multiple Wikimedia projects. Yet for more than a year, the Foundation declined to publicly acknowledge either the letter or the problems with Superprotect. But what a difference fourteen months can make: on November 5, 2015, Superprotect was removed, and the executive director publicly addressed the issue for the first time, declaring that its "precedent of mistrust" had to be reversed.

What changed in that time? Will the announcement have the desired impact on restoring trust and effective collaboration between the Foundation and Wikimedia volunteers?