[Foundation-l] Hiring of Interim Executive Director and Legal Counsel

Sun Jun 18 05:20:33 UTC 2006

On 6/14/06, Aphaia <aphaia at gmail.com> wrote:

> How about a different point of view? Separated in concept, but united
> in practice.

I see it the other way around. For me, the key concept that has
enabled the success of Wikipedia is "within our goal (to create an
encyclopedia), maximize participation, transparency and
accountability". This means that we accept certain control mechanisms,
such as page protection and the notion of admins, as necessary to
protect the encyclopedia, at least until better solutions are found.

I believe Wikimedia would be well served by following the same
_principle_, using different _practices_ which are appropriate for an
organization (taking into account, for instance, the legal
requirements and risks an organization faces; certain tasks require
certain minimum qualifications, etc.). I also view this, in both
cases, as a never-ending _process_, rather than a permanent state. If
either Wikipedia or Wikimedia become static in their practices, it is
time to think about replacing them.

This same view is applicable to the other projects: what is an
appropriate practice for Wikipedia is not necessarily so for Wikinews
or Wiktionary. Again, within each project's defined mission, we should
seek to optimize the above key variables. This is what I call the
"wiki philosophy", and it is independent from any particular
implementation or scenario. This philsophy, I feel, is universal.

Erik