Erik Moeller wrote:
On 11/10/06, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Essentially I agree. It all comes down to mature judgement, and who is capable of exercising it. We have a lot of people who can too easily jump to conclusions.
Yes. One question is whether we want every language and project community to develop its own policy on these matters, or whether this is an area where it makes sense to have a single policy that is localized. This goes for checkuser and oversight as well. Perhaps an in-between solution makes sense, where the WMF requires that local policies identify and propose a group that consists of the most trusted users before granting these privileges on a language/project level.
I can't address the technical requirements for someone with checkuser capacity, but technical competence is only one side of the coin. Good judgement, trust and common sense are just as important. The ideal checkuser is effective in both respects.
Rule making on the wiki tends to be chaotic at best, to the point where the best way to develop a rule can be to make a rule and hope that nobody notices. No-one can keep up with the process, or be certain of the circumstances when a rule was adopted. Proposing changes can be an intimidating process.
I would llike to propose a Rules Committee on the following bases.
1. Except for minor editorial changes the rules committee would not adopt the rules. It could propose new rules, amendments, rule reviews, or repeals, but the actual adoption would be by the community affected. It could develop a rational codification of the rules. 2. The rule committee would be primarily a foundation level committee, but could draft rules for any single project or group of projects. 3. Although membership at this stage would be relatively open, no person should be a member of the Rules Committee and any Arbitration Committee at the same time. This parallels the separation of the legislative and judicial arms of governments. While rule makers must be in a position to look at rules in broad terms, arbitrators must be concerned with applying existing rules to specific circumstances. 4. In order to be effective the number of members on the rules committee would need to be limited, and equitable means of adding or replacing members would need to be developed. 5. Where applicable the rules committee would need to work closely with the Translation Committee when a rule must be applied across multiple languages. 6. Among the higher priorities for the Rule Committee would be * Developing the distinction between Foundation, policy that needs to be consistent between projects of the same type, policy that needs to be consistent between projects in the same language, and policy which each project may develop separately. * Developing a consistent policy on policy adoption. * Developing consistent formats for policies. 7. Existing policies would be grandfathered until reviewed, replaced and readopted.
Initially, this committee would want a closed mailing list, and a number of volunteers to see if this experiment is workable.
Any thoughts out there?. Ec