Geoffrey Plourde wrote:
We have traditionally allowed each community to set up
its own principles. Meta level intervention in a project, barring blatant illegality, is
unprecedented and would indicate a significant departure from our bottom up ideology. As
administrators are appointed/elected volunteers serving according to project rules, rather
than formal employees, it is impossible for there to be any illegality in dismissal. There
is therefore a considerable precedent not to interfere, which would be detrimental to our
ideological foundation.
That's not really true at all--- *actual*, direct, overturning of local
community decisions is rare, but meta- and foundation-level discussion
of general principles and management issues, with a view towards
encouraging change on specific wikis, is common and constitutes probably
the majority of this list. For example, after the relicensing debate,
probably the second-largest debate here is a lengthy "meta level
intervention" in the English Wikipedia's handling of biographies of
living people.
-Mark