On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 00:15, Ting Chen <wing.philopp(a)gmx.de> wrote:
> What I can say to your questions is that Jimmy informed the board about
> his intention and asked the board for support. Don't speaking for other
> board members, just speak for myself. I answered his mail with that I
> fully support his engagement.
>
> Personally, I think that the board is responsible for defining the scope
> and basic rules of the projects. While for projects like Wikipedia,
> Wikisource, Wiktionary the scope is more or less easier to define. On
> Wikipedia we have the five pillars as our basic rules. But we have also
> some projects that have a scope that is not quite so clear and no such
> basic rules. Commons is one of these projects, and the most important one.
>
> Fact is, there is no consensus in the community as what is educational
> or potentially educational for Commons. And as far as I see there would
> probably never be a concensus. And I think this is where the board
> should weigh in. To define scopes and basic rules. This is why the board
> made this statement.
>
> For me, this statement is at the first line a support for Jimmy's
> effort. It is a soft push from the board to the community to move in a
> direction. Both Jimmy as well as me believe that the best way for the
> board to do things is to give guidance to the communities. But, this
> topic is already pending for years. Looking back into the archives of
> foundation-l or village pump of Commons there were enough discussions.
> If the problem cannot be solved inside of the community, it is my
> believe it is the duty of the board and every board member to solve the
> problem.
>
i might be wrong, but wasn't it _very_ important to have a clear
separation of concerns?
say, if the foundation or a chapter or one of its officers would be able to
change the contents of wikipedia by bypassing the established
community processes, even more so if it is done with an official board
voting:
would this not put _all_ the organisations and its officers in the
wiki*sphere at risk beeing sued by anybody not happy about the
contents of wikipedia - because jimbo proved that one can change the
contents via board resolution or "just like that"?
on the other hand, i consider jimbo trying it and proving that it
finally fails a brilliant idea and a very good case to prevent future
legal actions against the wmf and the chapters :)
rupert.