[Foundation-l] en.WP dysfunction (was: A letter to Wikipedia collides with the non-free content policies)

Sun Jan 27 10:05:02 UTC 2008

On 27/01/2008, Birgitte SB <birgitte_sb at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The idea that en.WP will recieve an offical WMF
> evaluation of specific case, when the most general
> pleas for clarification recieve no answer [1] is . . .
> ambitious.

Yes and no. Broad hypothetical cases are often much harder to answer.

> I really do not understand why en.WP is so
> dysfuntional that they cannot make common decisions
> within the community without appealing to the
> foundation several times a month.[2][3][4]  My biggest
> concern about a meta-arbcom is that it's cases will
> end up being 90% dire en.WP issues that *must* be
> appealed higher-up.  en.WP seems to be having about 5
> issues a month they believe they cannot deal with
> themselves, and this is *without* any meta-arbcom or
> other established process to appeal to.
>
> Why can en.WP not come to decisions within their
> community?  Is it because Jimbo's historical special
> relationship has handicapped them into always looking
> for a higher authority to step-in?  Or are they just
> bolder than other wikis and have no qualms about
> making demands on everyone's time for minor issues? Is
> it that they lack leaders that are willing to close
> these sorts of cases?  Or have they grown so big they
> can longer be managed at all?  Can we simply continue
> to ignore their dysfunction, or is there something to
> be done to help them become more self-suficiient?
>

En would probably be able to become entirely self-sufficient within a
few months. Of course the loss of it's lead project would remove a
significant amount of the foundation's relevance and cash. Assuming
you didn't mean to that extent they the answer is to stop messing in
en's day to day affairs no matter how tempting. This would of course
mean the the foundation would be largely limited to the role of a
shoestring IP but there are worse results.

-- 
geni