Delirium wrote:
Part of the problem from my perspective is that it
feels like you need
to make the transition to meta-level time commitment to have any say in
how things are run.
Why do you say that? You have a major say in how things are run,
despite not choosing to get directly involved with most of it.
I don't think that people who prefer to spend
most of their time editing the encyclopedia, developing its policies,
resolving article, disputes, etc.---the people intimately familiar with
the workings of our main reason for being here---should be cut off from
knowledge of and a say in what's going on at "higher levels".
I agree completely. But when we post everything we can publicly, have
open meetings, have community committees, and then people don't read it,
well, I don't agree that this is "being cut off".
In order to be involved you have to, you know, be involved.
Important
issues should be announced ahead of time to the community at large;
comments should be solicited and taken into account before final
decisions are made; and in very important cases even referendum-type
votes (or at least straw polls) should be taken.
This is exactly what we do.
At the very least things should be routinely discussed
on the
publicly-accessible mailing lists, and ideally important things should
be announced on the relevant wikis (i.e. Village-Pump type places) early
enough to give non-mailing-list folk a chance to weigh in.
This is exactly what we do.
Could we do better? Of course. But the best thing is that people who
feel as you and I do should get more involved in communicating and
summarizing for others, I suppose.
--
#######################################################################
# Office: 1-727-231-0101 | Free Culture and Free Knowledge #
#
http://www.wikipedia.org | Building a free world #
#######################################################################