[WikiEN-l] Time to reboot wikien-l

[William Pietri]

David Gerard wrote:
> http://original-research.blogspot.com/2007/11/wikien-l.html
>
> Others have been saying this and I'm increasingly convinced. Time to
> write some harsher content rules, then start over with no-one joined
> until they expressly join.
>
> Thoughts?
>   

I'm all for trying something different. Of the dozen or so lists I 
actually follow, this one definitely has the worst signal-to-noise ratio.

We can't get away with hot-tubbing[1] here, alas. So I'd suggest we come 
up with a few different lists, at least some of which are very strict in 
purpose, with charters ruthlessly enforced.

Off the top of my head, I'd suggest these:

    * wikien-interesting: A maximum of few posts a day of interesting
      things about or on Wikipedia. Heavily moderated, with the
      assumption that most posts are rejected. It would include
      interesting press mentions, new research, major activity on the
      site, or links to especially interesting blog posts about
      Wikipedia. No discussion, ever. Kinda like a Wikipedia-specific
      Boing Boing.
    * wikien-forum: A heavily moderated (or perhaps better put, curated)
      discussion list. Slow-paced, thoughtful discussion, limited in
      volume, and with a strong bias against rejecting rants,
      windmill-tilting, person-to-person argument, repetition, and
      points unlikely to lead anywhere interesting, and a mild bias
      against posts from frequent contributors.
    * wikien-open: The relatively open discussion that takes up much of
      the list now, with a bit more behavior-based moderation.


In some community contexts I'd lean toward something even more open, 
something like "wikien-open-sewer". But although it would be good to 
channel that energy away from the main lists, I suspect we're better off 
letting that happen somewhere else on the Internet.

I could also see a place for some topic-specific lists, but none come to 
mind right away.


William


[1] http://www.plocktau.com/writing/hottub.html

-- 
William Pietri <william at scissor.com>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:William_Pietri