[Wikinews-l] Re: the features...

Wed Jul 6 14:18:21 UTC 2005

Amgine:

> When has it been okay to experiment on the main page of a live site
> without so much as an explanation to the regular contributors to that
> site?

To quote Jimbo Wales, when he joined the site in November 2004: "I'm 
drastically changing a lot of pages to illustrate to people that this is 
a wiki." He then proceeded to alter key policy pages without prior 
discussion. The nature of wikis is to be bold, experiment, and see 
whether people agree with you. This is especially true for a site that 
is still in beta. My change to the developing stories box was, compared 
to the DPL changes that preceded it, minor, and hailed as an 
improvement. Even you now acknowledge the usefulness of the extension:

> I'm not opposed to the inputbox extension in and of itself; it's a
> slick piece of code which answers a need often expressed. I do not
> think it is appropriate to use a complex nested template as it is
> currently implemented, but that could be resolved by the community.

Nobody reverted the change, and had anyone done so, I would not have 
reverted back. In fact, you initially debated the change calmly 
(including comments like "<shrug>"), and only got angry over time, to 
the point that you left the project in a huff. I'm sorry if I made you 
angry in the discussion, but I have found that this tends to happen with 
you whenever I do *anything* on the site at all. But I won't go there.

You have removed the accusations against "bureaucrat Eloquence" from 
your proposal. I welcome that you are trying to depersonalize the 
debate. It is my belief, reflected also by various pages on Wikipedia et 
al., that bold changes are OK if
- you make a judgment call as to whether the change is controversial,
- you are prepared to accept a revert and face discussion.

This is part of my understanding of how wikis should work, but I am and 
have always been willing to discuss that. The problem seems to be that 
any bold change, especially by me, is controversial to you, not because 
of the nature of the change, but because of the boldness itself.

> There are currently 5 people supporting the creation of an Open
> English edition of Wikinews, which is obviously not entirely due to
> the recent differences regarding the DPL. Like any community at
> en.wikinews there are different opinions as to what the goals of the
> project may be, and some members of the community feel it is not going
> someplace they wish to continue to support.

People leave the English Wikipedia all the time. We don't set up an 
"Open English Wikipedia" because of that. I will not enumerate the many, 
many reasons why doing so in the case of Wikinews would be a bad idea. 
My suggestion is this: If you do not want to work with the existing 
Wikinews community, then please do set up your Open Newswiki as a 
separate site. I provide wiki hosting at reasonable rates, if you are 
interested ;-). So does Gabriel Wicke.

I would regret such a fork, of course. My alternative suggestion is to 
join the Wikinews Future Talk, and to help us find ways to improve the 
recent changes made to the site, as well as agree on general principles 
of collaboration:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikinews/Future_Talk

Of course, you are also free to continue to pursue an English language 
fork within Wikimedia. I for one will not participate in these 
discussions unless there is any indication from the Board level that 
such a thing would be supported.

Best,

Erik