I think an (elected) council is a better form than a "benevolent dictator" position, but we still would need to be clear on what their responsibilities are, and how and when they should intervene.
I would propose that as an election process for a council, we do an open comment page and secret ballot process for this position, with the same oversight as the historical Special:Boardvote process. Election officials would be selected for their neutrality - if we can't get sufficiently neutral election officials from within our project, find members of other projects that have minimal to no involvement in or connection to en.wiki.
I would also propose that this is a good time to adopt a formal charter for English Wikipedia, as a statement of the core values on which we are built, and the form of governance with which we protect those values and steer our project forward. This should be a simple document - a framework for policy rather than a codification of all the policies we have, and when and if it's adopted by the community, it should be submitted to the foundation for their approval. I believe that they could approve such a document without taking on the oversight of editorial processes and of content itself, but I am not a lawyer, so someone else would have to comment on the legal situation. The argument for of a charter of this form is that certain sensitive aspects of policy, such as the meaning of consensus, method of governance, and other crucial issues should not change except through careful deliberation and consent of the entire community.
-Stephanie
On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 11:48 PM, Fred Bauder fredbaud@fairpoint.netwrote:
On Mon, Jan 31, 2011 at 6:54 PM, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
[...] And if changes were proposed to this present system, who (or what entity) would approve and implement them?
on 1/31/11 10:14 PM, George Herbert at george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
The community, by consensus, for approval. Whoever chose to participate and was allowed to do so, for implementation.
This may have worked when the Community was the size it was in the beginning, but how, with such a enormous Community that has evolved, do you determine consensus?
Part of the greater problem is that self-selection by interest (our current mechanism for involvement in change and implementation) does not select for competence or for agreement with the consensus (or with what the consensus stands for).
We lack a functional dictator (or president) to cut the knot and enact efficiently; Jimmy might be able to do so, but burned a lot of his "street cred" with the community writ large with the incident that led to reductions in founder bit authority. I personally disagree with that, but I see a clear problem with community accepting his fiat now. Facing any significant opposition his position would not be an effective tiebreaker.
People stop trusting their leaders, when their leaders stop trusting them. It¹s a cautionary tale.
I have lived in communes in the past; some still flourish today. Its members are the definition of anti-authority thinking. But the ones that succeed are led by persons just as anti-authority in their beliefs as the rest, but have the interpersonal skills and trust of the community to lead it toward achieving its commonly-agreed-upon goals. The needs and wishes of the Community must come first. A leader merely assures that every Member has a voice, and that that voice is heard as distinctly as all of the rest. That leader can also assure that, if there is a hole in the roof, the group stays focused on finding methods of fixing it, rather than spending countless hours arguing about why everything inside is getting wet.
Given the size and complexity the Project has attained, such a leader is needed.
Aaron Sorkin said: "Choosing a leader: If we choose someone with vision, someone with guts, someone with gravitas, who's connected to other people's lives, and cares about making them better; if we choose someone to inspire us, then we'll be able to face what comes our way, and achieve things we can't imagine yet."
And I will add one more. The ability to separate their thoughts and ideas from themselves. When this is accomplished, the person can defend the former without feeling they must defend the latter.
It's time.
Marc
I stand ready to respect wisdom, but not authority. So if someone steps up and proposes changes that make sense I'm behind them all the way. As far as someone who thinks they can tell us all how to think, well, no. We'll make any change that makes sense. What are your proposals? (Other than having a great leader)
Fred Bauder
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l