On 6/24/07, The Mangoe the.mangoe@gmail.com wrote:
There is another problem with using the projects as core organizing points.A lot of them are organized around interest in a particular controversial subject, and therefore present POV issues. I imagine that most Christianity project members are Christians, and that most Anglican project members are Anglicans, and so forth. And then we get to the LDS project and the LGBT project and we would end up with, um, problems. (Not to mention REALLY sending Merkey of on a tear.)
The projects are organized around interest in a topic, not necessarily a controversial topic--that's what projects are: groups of editors interested in a topic, and ready and able to contribute to articles in that topic area.
I think the biggest problems is what David mentions, that projects are not necessarily aware of each other and each other's decisions. Some areas try to realize that with over-arching projects like Tree of Life for organisms. When an issue impacts all organisms, many members will post on WP:ToL, rather than only on their respective projects.
I don't see any other way of getting any structure in Wikipedia, since ultimately it is about volunteers, and you have to start with some method that acknowledges the volunteer nature of the editors--this means understanding they are editing articles they are interested in for some reason.
KP