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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