[Foundation-l] "Wikidrama" and autonomy of Wikimedia projects

Mon Aug 11 23:01:30 UTC 2008

Gerard, you could easily substitute any other project for "english
wikipedia" in these scenarios. Even in scenario two, as Wikipedia Review has
a German Wikipedia section. So, this isn't something that can just be
dismissed with a "Oh it's an en.wp thing"

-Dan

On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 5:43 PM, mike.lifeguard <mike.lifeguard at gmail.com>wrote:

> >The outcome of the discussion on
> >en.wp
> >was clear - usurping en.wp contributors required the assent of an en.wp
> >bureaucrat,
> >who must abide by en.wp rules.
> Luckily, there are many projects which do not have such a policy.
>
> >so its up to the local community to proscribe and police that sort
> >of
> >undesirable activity.
> Luckily, the wiki in question, and indeed most wikis, do not have a rule or
> guideline on this issue (though I believe it is fairly straightforward).
>
> >A bunch of en.wp users showing up to vote in a
> >checkuser
> >election on another project seems strange and wrong, but again its down to
> >the suffrage policy of that project to control such events.
> Luckily, the wiki in question doesn't have a suffrage policy.
>
> Whether this lack of policy/rule/guideline/whatever is a problem is
> debatable. For example, English Wikibooks has not suffered for lack of a
> renaming policy (or blocking policy for that matter!).
>
> In other cases, a user may feel their hands are tied because there is no
> policy which says "This is the right thing to do." In cases where policy is
> lacking, good judgment must be used.
>
> When good judgment does not prevail, there is a problem. Those who whine
> about wikis not having a certain policy should realize that that situation
> is not in and of itself a problem. This applies as much on a single project
> as on multiple projects. We simply do not need a global policy for
> everything - efforts to do so will largely fail.
>
> That said, the issues raised by Cary are real, and we need to discuss how
> best to deal with them. My point here is to warn that writing a global
> policy for every niche where no policy lives may not be the best way
> forward.
>
> Mike
>
>
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-- 
Dan Rosenthal