Hello
{{Explanation of getting noticed by Foundation
people}}
I completely understand how someone from a project big or small becomes trusted and agree that it can only happen by getting to know a person. What I meant was in the other direction; that the trusted people don't check in on the small projects. Before the copyright issue I always assumed the Foundation knew generally what happened at Wikisource. I certainly thought some one was reading our policy pages and approved of them. That someone made sure we had an active bueraucrat and responsible admistrators. However in reality the Foundation knows very little of how smaller projects are run and makes no effort that I know of to check-in. The only attention such projects recieve is if they come to a Foundation level people with a problem.
That is correct. Usually, attention is given when there is a problem. One can not assume the Foundation is aware of everything that is going on on all projects. And one certainly should NOT assume the Foundation knows and approve of local policies. For a simple and good reason. The Foundation is 3 people on the projects (Angela, Jimbo and myself). Whilst the projects are 8 and some are in over 100 languages. So, knowing and approving is simply impossible. Plus, do we really want that ?
That is not
good.
Well. I only half agree.
On one hand, our project is held together by a couple of major rules, which should absolutely be followed by all projects. Hmmm, I see only a few ones 1) general goal of a project should be respected, whatever the language. 2) content should be freely usable, freely reusable and free to modify. 3) content should follow NPOV rule
And that's about it.
On the other hand, our project is not run in a top-down fashion. There is no reason why the Foundation should know or approve local project policies. So, generally, I see not why "this is not good" unless the policy is about the goal, or the licence or the npov.
How are they regarded ?
They are regarded in this way. They are left alone without guidelines or advice and told to make thier own community; govern themselves.
Well, yes... it is great it is this way :-)
Then when
everything seems to be going fine some one steps in and says "Oh you guys are doing *that*. That is no good, you have get rid of that. And you must make up your own rules with the details of what goes and what can stay. Sorry I can't really give advice" And then they make new policies and no one is willing say the new policy actually kosher. So they hold their breath and hope the whole thing doesn't repeat again.
I see what you mean. But again, I have no idea who stepped in and who told you you were doing wrong etc... So, I can't really comment and mostly can not really say who could better help you set up new policies.
{{Intergration and Trust are needed}}
Speaking of trust. One suggestion made last summer
was that those given
checkuser access should provide their real names.
What is your opinion
about this ? If the Foundation trusts those with checkusers to use
it according to
policy, would checkusers trust the Foundation enough
to provide their
real names ?
I am surprised that this is not already required. I think you mean the Board would have access to the real names and not the people who are being checked, right?
Correct
{{Old copyright policy problems}}
No. It is worse than this... The Foundation board did not discuss this issue, even
less took a
decision about copyrights on wikisource. I presume it
came from a
discussion between Jimbo and legal bodies. I am
intentionally vague on
your UN resolutions and Crown legislation deletions
because I am not
aware of it. Sorry.
That is worse. Really the discussion happened on this list. We never got any real official ruling just vague comments that GFDL is good everything else is bad. This really not good enough for many reasons I will not get into. It is not simple but I do not want to force answers from people who are not knowledgable, because that is what caused the deletion of UN and Crown in my opinion.
{{Being cautious with copyright waiting for the
other shoe to drop}}
This is a problem. Have you talked to JImbo for
clarification ? You are
lucky, you share a language... Imagine japanese
editors...
See above. Yes I think some other languages are going to have rude shock about these kind of issues in the future. It will be worse because they will be much further along than we were when this happened. Thats why I am bringing this up. I want to find a solution before there is another 6 months of work put into these projects that will have to be deleted. I am thinking of those people most of all.
Would you be interested to create a group of people whose goals would be * To study which languages should be covered in our projects, or not * To study the wiseness to open a new language of a given project (according to number of interested editors etc...) * To gather a collection of pages of rules and guidelines to mandatorily translate in the future language before any creation of the new wiki * To collect pages to suggest new wikis to help them find their way in the jungle (with recommandations such as "register to foundation-l", "follow requests for permission on meta" etc...)
Do you think that would be interesting ? If so, would you agree to lead the creation of that group ?
Ant
{{ either too gun-shy to keep contributing, or
decide to just ignore
the rules they feel are arbitrary.}}
I am a proponent of ignore all rules...
Well yes, but we don't want people to go too far out of bounds.
PS : do you like mint tea ?
I really do like all kinds of tea. But I never make it at home I only order it at rrestaurants.
BirgitteSB
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