[Wikipedia-l] The Board -> Mav's disgust

Wed Sep 15 14:35:53 UTC 2004

John Lee wrote:
> The sentiment is dittoed here. I don't have a clue what all this
> hoo-ha is about, but that fact alone seems to suggest that something
> clandestine occurred.

Whatever may have happened here, it is not right to say that anything
"clandestine" occurred.  There was a large public discussion right
here on this list, and the decision which was taken was carefully
crafted (I thought) to carefully take into account each of the major
concerns that were raised, including most specifically Mav's.

There are two separate issues here, I suppose.  First, there's the
specific "content" question of the appropriate answer to the
wikispecies issue.  I think it fairly clear that the correct decision
was made _from the point of view of maximal accomodation to the
community_.  Mav's perspective has been accomodated to the maximal
extent possible, and there is sufficient flexibility moving forward
that Mav's input would be valuable in avoiding some of the bad
consequences that he fears.

The second issue here has to do with how the decision was made, and
clearly if Mav is upset, and if other people take mav's upset to be
valid out of respect for him, then the decision should have been
reached in a slightly different way.  In particular, I should have
reached out to mav privately to gain his support for the compromise
proposal, and he should have been notified in advance and given an
opportunity to give specific feedback.

What can't happen, because it makes everything impossible, is that a
single person who is clearly out of step with the consensus of the
community simply digs in his heels and stops forward progress.

--Jimbo