2010/9/28 John Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com:
This doesn't answer my question, which was:
_When_ will the board _review_ [the task-forces output]?
I'm sorry I didn't answer your question, John. Please note that I'm neither on the Board, nor am I part of Board meetings, nor do I serve as a conduit for them; the agenda for Board meetings is set by Sue together with the chair of the Board and other Board members. My understanding via Sue is that they'e focused so far on the high-level priorities articulated in the strategic plan, and my sense is that if individual task forces have items that they'd like to get the Board's review or input on, they should bring this to the attention of the Chair of the Board (tchen at wikimedia dot org) or an individual Board member they know. But others can chime in and correct me on this if needed.
It sounds your take is that the existing WMF policy is sufficient for the present time?
My take is that plenty of stuff can happen without waiting for the Board to pass new policy. I think that at least on the technology front, there are still some low-hanging fruits that would be relatively easy to pick (that is, to get consensus for), such as better reader-facing tools for reporting BLP issues (we've already thought a tiny bit about extending the new Article Feedback tool in this direction), generally better content patrolling/labeling tools, an evaluation and improvement of the effectiveness of the abuse filter, OTRS process improvements and support etc. That is not to say WMF can take all of these on, but all of them are actionable by anyone with enough time and motivation. On the policy front, my impression is that we're now dealing with genuinely difficult editorial borderline questions, and that the basics of policy are pretty solid at least in the mature projects.
The harder decisions are, as always, those where multiple perceived goods are in conflict, especially the good of openness to contribution/participation, and the good of minimizing harm to individuals -- semi or PC protection for all BLPs, for example. My view is that one shouldn't set unattainable standards; a clear labeling system for unreviewed edits, where we strive to reduce review time to as close to zero as possible, without going all the way to deferring the view of the latest revision, seems entirely ethically defensible for an encyclopedia developed in real-time. But, I can see the argument in favor of a Pending Changes type approach on all BLPs, and if that -- or stronger actions -- are what you believe is necessary, then yes, I think you'll need to persuade the Board of that for it to ever happen across all projects.