[Foundation-l] Policies expanding out of control

Sun Dec 5 13:16:54 UTC 2004

Here's a question for you then. Do you want the Arbitration Committee to use
"common sense" or follow established policies. (fyi, the Committee is
somewhat split on this point)

Fred

> From: Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com>
> Reply-To: Dori <slowpoke at gmail.com>, Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
> <foundation-l at wikimedia.org>
> Date: Sat, 4 Dec 2004 21:36:32 -0600
> To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
> Subject: [Foundation-l] Policies expanding out of control
> 
> I am really concerned that the number and extent of policies on en
> Wikipedia is getting seriously out of hand. It's true that some policy
> needs are necessary, but I feel like it's getting to the point where
> you must have memorized hundreds of pages, spanning hundreds of
> kilobytes of text, just to be able to edit within the "rules". Unless
> you're spending most of your waking moments on Wikipedia, and keeping
> up with all the new rules and decisions, you're unlikely to keep up
> with all this. This is especially hard on admins who are the targets
> of disruptive users. I am not saying that there shouldn't be
> accountability, but all these rules is making the whole editing
> process a whole lot less fun than it used to be. I am already feeling
> like I should stop being an admin, and if the policy explosion extends
> much further into the normal editing, I'd probably stop editing
> altogether. Common sense seems to be going out the window.
> 
> It used to be that we had mostly guidelines, but at some point
> guidelines seems to have moved into policy, and users are using these
> to clobber each other left and right. I think this is a looming threat
> to Wikipedia. The bureacracy level is increasing every day. I don't
> think that the benefits of the increased bureacracy outweigh the added
> complexity. Obviously Wikipedia is a lot bigger than it used to be,
> but I think the medicine might turn into a new disease.
> 
> -- 
> [[en:User:Dori]]
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