On 27/10/2007, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Oldak Quill wrote:
P.S. Just as a point of discussion: the
Foundation was created to make
certain processes easier and to centralise fundraising, &c. Why is a
non-Foundation decision or initiative somehow less valid than one led
by the Foundation?
Yes, the Foundation holds the purse strings (and does a very important
job), but the Foundation has been given too much primacy and authority
on Wikimedia issues. The Foundation also has a tendency to consolidate
power and remove community-based decision making processes (e.g. the
lack of consultation in the latest fundraising drive).
The key word there is
"given". You use a passive verb. Who did the
giving? How often do you see someone saying that we should first seek
the authority of the Foundation before taking action. The tendency to
consolidate power is not new to the Foundation. Ruling bodies tend to
step in and make decisions when an organization which proclaims
democracy is paralyzed by indecisiveness, and that paralysis would
result in a default decision that nobody wants. I don't blame the
Foundation in this, but on the community that fails to realize that its
own inability to make decisions defaults to small groups with the
courage to impose their own agendas. The Foundation is not the only
such group in WP.
Ec
Indecisiveness in Wikipedia arises from the methods of determination
we use (our policies, &c). The community can go some length in
correcting these, but the Foundation should encourage decisiveness and
decisionmaking-in-the-community. The way to ensure that this occurs is
to make the Foundation more accountable to the Wikimedia community,
define (limit) it's capacity to interfere in project issues and define
the relationship between projects and the Foundation.
--
Oldak Quill (oldakquill(a)gmail.com)