[Foundation-l] On closing projects

[Erik Moeller]

I've been asked by a number of people to comment on our procedure for
closing projects, specifically the LangCom's policy proposal & the
issue of the Siberian Wikipedia.

As far as I can tell -

1) There is a functioning process at:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_closing_projects

Insofar as it is not currently the case, I believe stewards should
generally be the ones closing these discussions. Like deletion
discussions on Wikipedia, they should not strictly be regarded as
"votes", but as weighted arguments. (IMHO in the most controversial
cases, multiple stewards should work together in closing the
discussion.)

2)  For closures that relate to the validity of a language, the
LangCom should make a recommendation as to whether the language should
be deleted (typically languages that were approved in the
pre-incubator days) or moved back to the incubator. This
recommendation ought to be taken into account by the steward(s)
finalizing the decision.

3) I do not see a need, at present, to give the LangCom any other
authority with regard to the closure of projects/languages.
"Developers" (server admins) should implement decisions based on the
stewards' requests.

4) The idea of a Meta-ArbCom is an interesting one, but it should be
explored separately from this issue.

5) The Siberian Wikipedia discussion should be closed by a group of
stewards, and take any recommendation of the LangCom on the matter
into account.

6) For the time being, the Board should receive notification (say 10
days) of any pending closure, but their approval is not needed. After
we have hired an ED, these notifications can go to the ED, and will be
escalated to the Board only when needed.

7) I have no personal opinion on the Siberian issue.

These are my personal, preliminary thoughts on the matter.
-- 
Peace & Love,
Erik

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