[WikiEN-l] How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

Fri Jan 13 05:45:46 UTC 2006

Stan Shebs wrote:

> John Lee wrote:
>
>> Stan Shebs wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> It would be nice to have more internal leadership. I think part of
>>> the trick is to model after professional societies and trade unions,
>>> where most leadership positions are part-time on a volunteer basis.
>>> For instance, projects could elect lead editors, whose special role
>>> during their terms is to preside over discussion on issues, and then
>>> make an executive decision, thus eliminating the indecision arising
>>> from those 56%-44% votes (think of city naming conventions). A lead
>>> for user page policy could have saved a lot of userbox anguish by
>>> being on top of the practice from the beginning.
>>>
>>> Stan
>>>
>> The problem is that these positions are often elected - and as we 
>> have learnt from the debacle of this and last last year's arbcom 
>> elections, campaigning for these positions is *brutal*. There'll be 
>> even more anguish if the 56%-44% vote decides more than just one 
>> issue. My suggestion would be something similar to the current arbcom 
>> elections, but less divisive. The community nominates certain people 
>> (how this is done is up to them), who will then write their candidate 
>> statements, etc. Those who oppose/support must provide 
>> links/diffs/etc. showing why they oppose/support. For instance, 
>> "Oppose. [a few links to instances of POV pushing]" Unless the 
>> situation may be ambiguous, there should be no need to say "POV 
>> pusher" or "bad attitude". Then, the board will review the 
>> candidates' statements (and those of the people opposing/supporting 
>> them), and make its decision. (If this was a bit hard to follow, 
>> please let me know.) It sounds a bit bureaucratic, but I think it has 
>> a bit of potential if we're going to have a "lead editor".
>
>
> Arbcom is perhaps the hardest kind of position to elect, because the
> people involved have to get in the middle of all the worst fights in
> WP. To take the project I've been involved with the longest,
> WikiProject Ships, there have only been a couple serious arguments in
> the nearly three years of its existence. Most of the time it works to
> have one person propose, one or two say "good idea", and the rest
> silently acquiesce in the new order of things. Other times you get a
> proposal, an objection, a bit of discussion, and then deadlock; nobody
> wants to call a vote even, because it would simply numerify the near
> even split. The irony is that everybody is acting in good faith, and
> if a "first among equals" were to break the tie, project members would
> just go along. For many projects, I imagine that if someone were to put
> a hand up, that person would be elected by acclaim; others may indeed
> need to set up more of a formal balloting process.
>
> I'm not sure how much WP as a whole needs to get involved. It might be
> sufficient just to announce that projects are free to have "leads", let
> them each experiment, and then later recommend to all projects what
> seems to work the best.
>
> To tie back to AfD, if it were a project's prerogative to define
> deletion criteria, then AfD could become more of a routing mechanism
> that delegates articles' fates to projects. I'm not going to scan
> AfD every day on the off-chance that a nautical topic comes up, but
> would take time for a lower-volume "AfD/Ships", for instance.
>
> Stan

Ah, a bit of a misunderstanding there. I thought you were referring to 
different Wikimedia projects, and not WikiProjects. I still think having 
a general "lead editor" to break the deadlock would be a good idea, 
though. Jimbo and Angela used to play this role on en until their 
fundraising and PR work to them elsewhere. I think my proposal would be 
applicable here, especially as the "lead editor" would be the board's 
representative for the project, allowing him to make the tough calls 
Jimbo, et al used to make but no now longer can't. This devolution of 
power might be a feasible idea, as right now, our wild and woolly way of 
resolving content disputes, etc. just isn't working, as UninvitedCompany 
has pointed out - at some point, we'll either have to find a better way 
than calling a vote, or just have the project break down into anarchy.

John Lee
([[User:Johnleemk]])