[Foundation-l] Meta:MetaProject to Overhaul Meta

Thu Mar 30 21:48:39 UTC 2006

Anthere wrote:

>By "issues on meta had nothing to do with the Foundation", I mean that 
>meta goes much beyond Foundation issues. It includes Foundation issues, 
>it includes community issues, it includes technical issues. That's a 
>melting pot.
>
You're probably right to say that meta is all of the above, but the fact 
that the Foundation is a significant element of meta implies that 
Foundation policy issues that are included there *must* be clearly 
identified.

My earliest impressions of Meta was that it was a convenient place for 
POV rants that were not suitable for the NPOV environment of Wikipedia.  
It has taken on additional roles since then including all those that you 
have listed, and probably a few others.  Votes happen there which some 
interpret as having a broad application to all projects, while others, 
who do not maintain a constant watch on Meta's activities, are surprised 
when something that may have been thoroughly discussed on Meta appears 
as decided policy on a specific project where the matter was never 
discussed at all.

Individual projects have enough difficulty with creeping policy 
obsession in their own right.  Someone proposes a policy which cannot be 
deleted without a serious breach of Wikiquette; everyone who has better 
things to do than wrangle over policy promptly ignores it; several 
months later someone attempts to enforce it on the presumption that it 
must be valid policy since no-one opposed it.  Familiar?

Wikimedia is big, very big, maybe even too big.  That makes the process 
of open communications more important than ever.  It also means that we 
are in desparate need of clarification of Meta's role. 

If committees are seen as participants in secret backroom deals 
credibility suffers.  There may be quite valid and legal reasons for 
maintaining the confidentiality of arrangements with outsiders.  When 
that happens we need to examine whether the deal or the community is 
more important.  When the inertial impulse toward unchecked growth comes 
into conflict with the ethics of openness there are some fundamental 
concepts that need to be re-examined.

Ec