--- Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Birgitte SB wrote:
--- Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
You do not get my point. When policies are to be
changed, when the way
things work are to be changed, this is when you
should inform the
communities in advance. Some careful marketing
communication is what is
needed. Marketeers call it customer relations. And
you /need /to inform
your customers; when you do, you talk to all your
customers when you
don't you have to deal with them one at a time and
you may find that
customers do no longer give you their custom.
Given how busy you are,
you would not even notice.
I disagree with this sentiment in general terms.
If
the "customers" are not making an effort to watch
the
pages where policy decisions are disscused, they should not expect to courted by those wishing to change policy. The community that is actually
doing
the work of maintaining a project should have the ability to set policy without going out of their
way
to court the fly-by-night users of the project. I
do
not think it is wise to try and alienate the less active userbase, but it is unrealistic to wait for their reaction before making any decisions.
This seems like a somewhat frigid approach. It's true enough that policies are developped by the most active members, but many policies should allow for viable alternatives. If a newcomer has a different way of doing things that does not conform with established formatting norms there should be room to develop those ideas without his being pilloried because he does things differently. "Ignore all rules" should always remain a viable policy. This does not mean that we need to accept every bit of idiocy that comes along. Nor does it mean that core principles must be abandoned. Good rules support existing practice rather than shape it. Poor rules, even by the most active members, tend to be ignored as people go ahead and do their own things.
Almost all rules should be open to change, because a community thrives on new ideas. Very few rules should be the subject of persistent enforcement.
I believe you misunderstand me here. I strongly believe that most policies should be up for reevaluation. Many things seem like great ideas, or seem as though they would naturally go hand in hand until you actually start *working* on them. Newcomers who active on a project are certainly welcome in my view. I see them as future established users. I think you have hit the nail on the head with "Good rules support existing practice rather than shape it." The problem with the original suggestion is such advertisement would atract people who have no understanding of existing practice. That is my concern. I feel anyone familar with existing practice will be aware of policy disscussion through the normal in-project channels.
The English Wikisource recently made a major change
to
it's incluson guidelines (which involves the
eventual
deletion of around 200 pages). We held open disscusion for over three weeks, and the material
is
now being slowly phased out without a mass
deletion.
Although there was a small amount of advertising amoung people with a specific interest, the participants in the disscusion did not vary from
the
regular editors. I cannot agree that it should
have
been advertised at large across projects. I am
very
happy with the way we have handled this situation which quite at odds with your sentiments.
I presume you're referring to the source code articles. With many of these the contributors haven't been around for a long time, and that's probably an indicator of a failed sub-project. Still, the safe and fair approach is to give personal notice to any contributors that are still around, and leaving them ample time to respond.
You are correct although it also included the exclusion of most all reference data. It was not due to inactivity so much as impracticality of managing it. But I do not see a need for great detail here.
It would not be productive during a major policy disscussion to issue an invitation to people who
have
no idea how a project operates on a day-to-day
basis.
The community which actually *works* on a project needs to be the ones to set policy. If the people
you
consider "customers" find that the community no
longer
serves their needs, they should work to carve out
such
a niche themselves. These projects are all
operating
with a limited amount of volunteers and I cannot imagine any of them would ignore the corcerns of people willing to get their hands dirty. But when someone has the mindset that they are a "customer"
and
want to reallocate these existing voluteers to take care of their pet issues, well I won't be so
impolite
as to express what I think of that. Now they are welcome to share these concerns. Many people can vouch that I am willing to drop my current project
to
help them deal with issue I agree is important when they bring to my attention. But to say projects should not attempt to set policy unless they personally invite over all the people who are
standing
on the sidelines is ridiculous. Even if such
people
are the most informed, intelligent, reasonable
people
on earth, they will not be a useful addition to
policy
disscusions until they have worked within the
project
and achieved such understanding that can only be gained by experience. The fact that infrequent
users
may not *like* the communities policy descision is
not
reason enough to hold off on any decision till they have been consulted.
I don't know about the applicability or implications of the term "customers", but I can certainly discuss the matter without using it.
Most people have little interest in getting involved in policy matters. They may be interested in specific content areas, and see unending debates about policy as a total waste of time. They continue to work well on their specialty, and will only discuss policy when their own area is affected. That's fine. For them the discussion _starts_ at that point.
I very strongly believe in the autonomy of the projects; I had a big argument with a significant Wikipedian about that during the earliest days of Wikisource. Although it would be patently ridiculous to invite absolutely everyone to participate in some of these discussions, it is just as ridiculous and even unjust and arrogant to suggest that informed Wikimedians cannot make useful contributions to a current debate. Absence of input may not be a valid reason to hold off decisions, but it is a valid reason to hold off enforcement in inappropriate circumstance.
Ec
I have not really experienced "unending debates about policy". Most proposals actually need little debate at all. Maybe that is a scale issue. I really am open to hear anyone interested in Wikisource to come add a voice to policy discussions. But I would expect them to keep an eye on the Scriptorium. Most everything that applies to Wikisource on a broader sense is disscused there. Maybe I am wrong, but imagine a large scale advertisment would attract people who are more interested that Wikisource does something they believe it should than *how* it does something. I am very much interested in the more pragmatic input which I believe requires some familarity with how Wikisource operates.
Birgitte SB
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