Robert Scott Horning wrote:

Brian wrote:

...

Short version: There is a huge battle going on in which VFDers on WP, WS, and Commons are pushing user-compiled lists from one project to another. In each case, they are saying the lists belong on one of the other 3 projects. Almost nobody is saying that these lists don't belong anywhere, but nobody can decide on where they belong. It also doesn't help that nobody on one project accepts the outcome of another project's VFD (an outcome which may have said to transwiki to this project) as a reason to keep it on this project.

*snip*

...

Meanwhile, on Wikipedia, an Undelete request was instituted (by myself, I think) for the General Slocum list, but the majority are saying that it doesn't belong on Wikipedia, but on Commons or Wikisource.

Summary: As Stevertigo said: "Theres no sense in people batting this thing about. Clearly it belongs at source or [WP]... There needs to be some policy against batting things around."

As a regular at Wikibooks, we've battled with this issue a little bit ourselves in regards to lists, but it has been mainly to push them back to Wikipedia. There has been some problems with Wikipedia articles coming to Wikibooks as a fork (I've already thrown my $0.02 on that issue) and in some cases throwing the articles back to Wikipedia. Sometimes a book module gets started that really should be a Wikipedia article, and that does get transwikied.

In general the distinctions between each of the projects is not as clearly defined as it should be, particularly in the case of new ideas for content and where it should be placed. Wikibooks in particular seems to be a dumping ground from Meta when nobody can think of a place to put a project idea (and the idea originator doesn't want to go to Wikicities). Projects like Wikijunior only add to this mess (not that I'm opposed to Wikijunior being a part of Wikibooks at the moment). Wikipedia is getting so large now (and this is a good thing) that it is attracting a number of people with some very original ideas (like the lists) which don't seem to fit current structures.

The question I have is how do you resolve these kind of issues between Wikimedia projects? Embassies might be an option, but those were mainly designed around the idea of acting between languages where content disputes are much more easily dealt with. Should the scope of them be broadened? How do you keep Wikipedia from overwhelming the much smaller sister projects in these conflict resolutions? I don't think every issue like this should be put on Foundation-l for resolution. (but thanks for bringing up the discussion, Brian)

To me this is something that clearly should stay on Wikipedia in the absence of a functioning WikiMemorial project.

The functioning of the Transwiki process has never been premised on the idea that an article would be accepted in its proposed new home. This is why these are put into a "Transwiki:" pseudo-namespace. It appears that in February, when WP transferred this to Wikisource the use of "Transwiki" was ignored completely, and the appearance was given that it was newly given to WS by an anonymous IP number who has otherwise made no contributions to Wikisource. The timing on this debate has been strange. The rather cursory original vote of the dedicated VFDers on WP and the transfer took place in February. I finally tracked down the even more detailed undeletion as having happened in April, but it is only appearing here for advice.

I think that the whole thing should be put back on WP and the deletion process started up again from scratch if people still want it deleted. When that happens Wikisource, Wikicommons and this list should all be advised so that all interested persons can vote.

In more general terms we might consider adapting a practice from the US political system when the House and Senate to not agree. Some kind of conference committee could be set up to make a binding decision. This could be used in situations where the fundamental question is "Where does this article belong?",

Ec

Anthere wrote:

Brian a écrit:

...

First off, my credentials:

[[en:User:Brian0918]] Administrator 11,754 edits

Short version: There is a huge battle going on in which VFDers on WP, WS, and Commons are pushing user-compiled lists from one project to another. In each case, they are saying the lists belong on one of the other 3 projects. Almost nobody is saying that these lists don't belong anywhere, but nobody can decide on where they belong. It also doesn't help that nobody on one project accepts the outcome of another project's VFD (an outcome which may have said to transwiki to this project) as a reason to keep it on this project.

This is an important point you raise. From another perspective, we also increasingly are confronted to situation of editors jumping from one project to another, or one language to another, while they are banned on the first and not (yet ?) on the second. Some editors will then reject civil rights to this editor (such as forbidding to an editor banned on the english wikipedia to vote on meta), while others consider he should be given a chance as blocking rules are different from one project to the next (for example, the german wikipedia seems to block or unsysop editors much more easily than the french wikipedia). There is an ongoing issue right now with an editor of the dutch and english projects.

In short, we increasingly are confronted to this inter-projects relationships, relying in local rules... as many issues fall in a sort of grey area. What you report kinda of fall in the same area.

Do you think a sort of international committee, made of editors from different projects and different languages could make these decisions on behalf of all editors in these sorts of situation, per request of local communities. Right now, it mostly ends up by request to Jimbo, Angela and myself... and I'd say it is not the best solution. The only good point of this solution is that usually our decision is well accepted by (relieved) editors.

So, it would be interesting to see whether a sort of international court would be acceptable to solve these kind of issues.

If so, how could it be organised ? How would it get members ? (nomination, elections...) On which rules would it work ?

There is a big difference between the question of where an article belongs, and project shopping problem editors. When the question involves the location of an article we still need to start with a presumption of good faith, and a hope that a consensus can be found for the solution.

With problem editors the good faith has already been put into question.

I've always felt that each project should have the maximum possible autonomy within a limited set of broadly applicable rules.. For these the international committee (or court) could work, but we need to be clear about its role and when its use ould be relevant. It would certainly help with those who, after being banished from one project go do their mayhem on another. It could also act as an appeal tribunal for small wikis, where a dominant leader goes too far in the exercise of his sweeping powers. If he bans someone for more than 24 hours he should notify that person of his right of appeal.

Ec

The idea of a WikiList solution to the Transwiki list struggle might also make available a records lists a la Guiness book of world records kind of thing.

http://lists.wikipedia.org or its own domain at http://www.wikilists.org would be nice, (but the dot com address wikilists.com is already taken).

With regards always, Jay B.

2005/7/31, ilooy ilooy.gaon@gmail.com:

Hi all, Why not create a separate wiki for Lists, call it WikiLists and allow the archival of all sorts of lists on whatever anyone wants to make a list of [...]

Dont forget the recently created 'Featured Lists' page. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_lists