Delirium wrote:
Part of the problem from my perspective is that it feels like you need to make the transition to meta-level time commitment to have any say in how things are run.
Why do you say that? You have a major say in how things are run, despite not choosing to get directly involved with most of it.
I don't think that people who prefer to spend most of their time editing the encyclopedia, developing its policies, resolving article, disputes, etc.---the people intimately familiar with the workings of our main reason for being here---should be cut off from knowledge of and a say in what's going on at "higher levels".
I agree completely. But when we post everything we can publicly, have open meetings, have community committees, and then people don't read it, well, I don't agree that this is "being cut off".
In order to be involved you have to, you know, be involved.
Important issues should be announced ahead of time to the community at large; comments should be solicited and taken into account before final decisions are made; and in very important cases even referendum-type votes (or at least straw polls) should be taken.
This is exactly what we do.
At the very least things should be routinely discussed on the publicly-accessible mailing lists, and ideally important things should be announced on the relevant wikis (i.e. Village-Pump type places) early enough to give non-mailing-list folk a chance to weigh in.
This is exactly what we do.
Could we do better? Of course. But the best thing is that people who feel as you and I do should get more involved in communicating and summarizing for others, I suppose.