On 6/1/07, Ray Saintonge <saintonge(a)telus.net> wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On 5/31/07, Erik Moeller
<erik(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>On 5/31/07, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
>
>
>>Has it been decided whether or not the individual projects have any say
in
>>
>>
>>determining their own names, or whether the foundation will impose a
name
upon them from the top down, or is this still up for debate?
It is not decided that anything will change at all, and if it will,
the parameters of that change are very much up to debate. This survey
is an informal project I have initiated to collect some data for
further discussion.
It is worth considering, when it comes to majority decisions on such
matter, that a group can be its own worst enemy:
http://www.shirky.com/writings/group_enemy.html
Right, and it was precisely that essay that I had in mind when saying
this.
To give an example, I would suggest that
Wikipedians (who aren't involved
in
Wikinews) shouldn't be involved in a
discussion as to whether or not to
change the name of Wikinews, because they are not at all part of the core
group of the Wikinews project.
That sounds like an effective divide and conquer strategy. A person who
is determined to effect these changes would likely have an easier time
doing it that way than by trying to develop a consensus across all the
projects at once.
I was thinking it'd be just the opposite. If you have a consensus across
each project individually, then you automatically have a consensus across
all projects as a whole. The reverse, however, is not true.
I very much support the operational autonomy of projects, but this is
not an operational matter; it's a question of
identity.
Well, I certainly think a project's members should have a say in their
identity. Not that they should be the sole determiner of that, mind you,
but a change from above which doesn't have the support of the project's core
members is bound to fail anyway.
To draw a
parallel with the United States, would it be
acceptable if State X
insisted on calling itself the "Confederate State of X"? Even an
overwhelming popular vote in the state for that would not find
acceptance in a wider community.
No, it wouldn't be acceptable. IMO change should only come with the consent
of *both* the core members of the project *and* the core members of the
foundation as a whole.
Anthony