[Foundation-l] Conflict resolution on meta Wikimedia

Wed Feb 23 18:17:23 UTC 2005

I think your comments will help a lot Rowan, particularly about 
pointing to desirability discussion in the opening paragraph.

Thanks,
Christiaan

On 23 Feb 2005, at 6:07 pm, Rowan Collins wrote:

> Christiaan, Gerard, et al:
>
> * I have not previously been involved in any of the discussions over
> image suppression / self-censorship / content choice, and do not, at
> present intend to state any particular opinion about this issue.
> * I don't know what, if any, formal conflict resolution procedures
> there are on meta, but since you've asked here, I thought I would give
> some personal opinions about the conflict you are having. I would
> stress that I have no set opinion on this debate, so although these
> are my opinions, I hope they are relatively unbiased.
>
> * Firstly, I do not consider Gerard's actions to be "trolling", but
> nor do I consider Christiaan to be "blinkered". This is a conflict of
> understanding, pure and simple, regarding the purpose of a particular
> page. This seems to be something of a problem on meta, because it is
> so unstructured, and lacks a coherent community of its own, so people
> vary greatly in how they perceive it. (I've been involved in similarly
> heated debates over pages to do with single login proposals.)
>
> * Secondly, I don't think the use of a "disputed tag" is appropriate
> here: meta has no NPOV policy, or any equivalent, and simply linking
> to that of the English Wikipedia is irrelevant. Meta is a very
> different environment, and meta pages are more closely related to
> those of traditional wikis, in that they are a kind of on-going
> refactored discussion, rather than content aimed at presentation.
> Indeed, it's debatable whether many of them should have separate
> "Talk:" pages at all - a traditional Wiki simply refactors discussion
> ["ThreadMode"] into structured content ["DocumentMode"] as necessary.
> [Note that there is an exception in terms of "documentation" pages,
> but those are increasingly confined to the Help: namespace] In other
> words, disputed or disputable content is the norm, not the exception.
>
> * Thirdly, I do think it is important for those creating a page with a
> particular purpose in mind to not only state what is on-topic, but
> provide an outlet for what is off-topic. If "philosophical" discussion
> about the proposal is taking place elsewhere, it should be referenced
> clearly. In other words, the introduction should read something like
> "This page discusses technical implications of implementing such a
> scheme; for discussion of whether it would be desirable, see: ..." If
> there is no page appropriate to end that sentence, it should be
> created, if only by adding a heading to the existing page under which
> the discussion can take place. It seems to me that there *is* a lot of
> existint discussion about this, so it ought to be possible for a
> central point to be found or created. [References to appropriate parts
> of the mailing list archives could also be added.]
>
> * In summary: *in my opinion* it is perfectly OK for a page on meta to
> exist that discusses the technical measures needed for something that
> may never happen; however, it is also OK for people to discuss the
> necessity and/or desirability of the feature. Therefore, if it seems
> appropriate to separate the two, they should be adequately
> cross-referenced, so that it is clear to anyone entering the
> discussion how they relate.
>
> I hope this helps, and I hope it doesn't read too much like legalese -
> I've been reading documents from my local Borough Council all
> afternoon...
>
> -- 
> Rowan Collins BSc
> [IMSoP]
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