[Commons-l] Principles of organisation - who do we serve?

Tue Nov 14 11:04:41 UTC 2006

On 14/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 14/11/06, Brianna Laugher <brianna.laugher at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > (...and perhaps we can make the pertinent point, without whining too
> > much, which led some people to consider this option: overwhelming
> > copyvios and underwhelming supply of labour.)
>
> Some people in the Commons community seem to want it both ways. Is
> Commons an entirely independent project or does it, as a service
> project, need to open itself up to administration by people from other
> projects to keep up with its actual original purpose?

Who ever proposed Commons as an "entirely independent project"? All of
our admins come from other Wikimedia projects. You are the only one I
ever see say this.

If you're suggesting that Commons start allowing anyone with adminship
on any Wikimedia project to become an admin on Commons, dream on.
Being knowledgable about image copyright is not an important
consideration on many (most?) RfA processes. It might be one factor,
but not a deciding one. Many of our projects don't even have image use
policies. It's not so long ago that even English Wikipedia was far
more lax about image use.

> This discussion appears to demonstrate Commons simply isn't making
> admins through its own processes anywhere near fast enough and its
> processes need radical revision.

Sysopping is a tricky business. We already have, IIRC, the third
largest number of admins (after en.wp and de.wp).

The problem is not that our standards are too high. Our standards are
remarkably low, given the impact our actions can have, in fact. The
problem is a lack of interest. I don't know why you find this hard to
believe. But when you figure out how to get people interested in
glory-free, thankless tasks that most users will never see or have any
idea even go on, then feel free to let us know. Piece of cake,
right...

regards,
Brianna