[Foundation-l] VC - alternative resolution

Fri Apr 4 21:45:33 UTC 2008

--- Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:

> VC shouldn't be responsible only for developing
> policies, but for
> their implementation, too. If VC is not able to find
> a way how to
> implement one policy, then that policy is useless.
> And the main job of
> VC is to address communities/content problems. So,
> (one of) the first
> thing(s) which it should address is to handle
> no-ones-jobs; which
> means to find a way how to implement the solution
> for that problem.
> 

This is where I am feeling disagreement with you.  You
say "the main job of VC is to address
communities/content problems", but you all the
examples you have given have been things that could be
described as "outsider's problems".  By which I mean
an outsider has a problem with Siberian WP, or and
outsider feels X.WP is not implementing NPOV
correctly.  I have never seen a community come to this
list and ask for help on the sort of problems you
describe.  And they do come here with other sorts of
problems. I am not saying that the problem's you
describe do not exist or that they are unimportant. 
But they are extraordinary problems that we should not
be basing a large permanant organization around. 
Extreme cases are not the greatest need.  However
slowly you feel these cases were addressed; they were
addressed.  That cannot be said about the more common
problems faced by communities.

I would much prefer an organization that is built
around the mundane problems and is able to empower the
communities to implement good policies by giving them
boundaries within which to work out their own
solutions. A group that would put together and
translate a copyright FAQ would be fulfill a need ten
times greater than one going around examining, and
when neccesary implementing changes for, all the
Wikipedias NPOV policies.  Implementing policies is
not scalable no matter how large the VC ends up being.
And such an effort will only stifle the ability of
individual communities to come up with creative
methods that may be shared back across other
communities if successful. 

I think everything Ec has been saying  lately has my
strong agreement and I am glad to see he is part of
this group.  Not just because of that, as we often
disagree on other topics. But because he does not seem
to be spread as thinly as the some of the other
members with prior commitments. I must admit I prefer
Nathan's alternative resolution. I like cautious
approaches best. There is a reason that no Council has
ever been created despite years of discussion. The
reason is not because of a lack of ambition to
actually do it so much as to a more widespread fear of
the ambitious.  Caution in creating this Council will
do a great deal to allievate those fears. 

Birgitte SB

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