[Foundation-l] Policies expanding out of control

Sun Dec 5 20:47:46 UTC 2004

Just so that the discussion gains more interlingual dimension..

I recently find a similar tendency at Japanese Wikipedia. Some of the 
policies that I feel difficult include the kind of policies that define 
people's qualifications:

*Who can vote at Request for Deletion
*Whose inappropriate comments could be removed at Request for Administratorship
*Who can remove inappropriate comments at Request for Administratorship
*Who can make a request at Request for Blocking
*Who can conclude a discussion on an item on Request for Deletion
*Who can conclude a discussion on an item on Request for Administratorship

These policies were formed in reactions to IPs and new accounts disturbing 
the process by making irrelevant comments, illegitimate requests, disputable 
conclusions, etc. We do not know those IP edits and new accounts are real innocent 
newbies who were simply bold, or some troublemakers disguising as a newbie. 

I was thinking what alternatives were available: 

1)No rule, & give matters on the discretions of bold volunteers, 
who may or may not exercise fair judgment. 

2)No substantive rule, but give matters to designated trusted volunteers 
who we can expect would act in good faith and common sense. 

3)Simplify those rules but still let them exist. 

I don't have an answer except that 1) is probably not as good as 2) and 3).. 
I had a chance to chat with other Japanese Wikipedians on this, and some of 
them who were pushing/leading to formulate the rules seem to recognize that 
those rules create some problems by solving one. 

Tomos

----- Original Message -----
From: Fred Bauder <fredbaud at ctelco.net>
To: foundation-l at wikimedia.org
Sent: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 06:16:54 -0700
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Policies expanding out of control

>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
>