On 27/10/2007, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Charlotte Webb wrote:
On 10/26/07, RLS evendell@gmail.com wrote:
Out of curiosity, was this discussed or presented to the community at large before a decision was made?
Hopefully you realize any such discussion would reach a perpetual stalemate, and nothing would ever happen. And then the explicit "lack of consensus" would be used as an argument against any "let's just be bold and try it" maneuvers, even by people a handful of people who would otherwise support such an action. There has to be a word for this phenomenon, but I can't find it at the moment.
I wasn't trying to assert any view on the productivity of such a discussion. Rather, it was a roundabout way of saying "you know, this is why people think there's a cabal." Those who are paranoid about that sort of thing would have had a field day with GM's original message, and probably wouldn't have paid any attention to the ensuing discussion that he felt this was the most effective way to get action started, and that no "cabalized" decision had been made.
If one were concerned about en.wp's culture *appearing* open to everyone to participate in the decision-making process, one wouldn't present proposals that way. That's all.
On the contrary, I think a community that allows anyone to make proposals regardless of their role, status, &c. is freer than your alternative (freedom of opportunity in a very non-political sense). All it requires is initiative - the community weeds out unpopular proposals if they are done on-wiki and in a transparent way.