On 04/09/2013 12:18 PM, Denny Vrandečić wrote:
I thought that in order to discuss these design
decisions with the
community before hand, telling them on their respective village pump is
sufficient. Not so it seems. No single channel would find acceptance to
communicate with the community. This, obviously means, that it is not
actionable to communicate with the community.
First of all, some people (including on English Wikipedia) are quite
happy with the idea of deploying Wikidata Phase II. Those who are not
seem to be arguing for a community-wide RFC before allowing deployment.
It does not seem that they are arguing no one was notified.
What about setting up a community selected body of
representatives to
discuss such issues beforehand? At first, it sounds like a good idea - but
the issue is, it makes the process only more complicated without at all
resolving the underlying issues. Does anyone really think that such a body
would stop the criticism before or after the deployment of the change in
question? Yeah, right. Doesn't change a thing.
Yeah, I do not think this is a good idea. When something does need a
community decision (not saying everything does), I don't think some new
special council will help anything. That would basically introduce
indirect democracy in place of direct consensus. Community-wide RFCs
are not always smooth, but they do usually work.
Matt Flaschen