Filip Maljkovic wrote:
Forwarding on behalf of Waldir.
Cheers, Filip
Well, damn. Don't know how the message got removed. Anyways, here it is :)
Hi all.
I would like to request your attention to a vote that will start this midnight, regarding a rearrangement of the top ten Wikipedias that are displayed on the main wikipedia portal (http://www.wikipedia.org http://www.wikipedia.org/).
This topic has been wandering around for a long time on Talk:www.wikipedia.org template http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:www.wikipedia.org_template, coming to surface in many occasions, especially on the times around the milestone of 100.000 articles of the Chinese and Russian Wikipedias.
After a tentative wrap-up of all the proposals made in that page throughout the months in Talk:www.wikipedia.org template#rethinking the top ten http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Www.wikipedia.org_template#rethinking_the_top_ten, a discussion was launched in *Top Ten Wikipedias http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Top_Ten_Wikipedias*, to which all the major Wikipedias have been invited to in their village pump.
A lot of good opinions have been collected and discussed, and a vote proposal http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Top_Ten_Wikipedias#Vote_proposal has been made and received some feedback. That proposal was now implemented on Metapub. Please head to the poll http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub#Top_10_Wikipedias.28poll.29 to vote. I hope to see you there! --Waldir http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Waldir 12:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)
Filip Maljkovic wrote (on behalf of Waldir):
I would like to request your attention to a vote that will start this midnight, regarding a rearrangement of the top ten Wikipedias that are displayed on the main wikipedia portal
Please head to the poll http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub#Top_10_Wikipedias.28poll.29 to vote. I hope to see you there! --Waldir
You failed to mention what sort of authority or mandate this poll has been given, compared to all previous opinions, votes and polls on the same topic in recent years. I don't even know whether the design of the www.wikipedia.org front page is the responsibility of the WMF board, its chairman or the CEO. Will they agree to be micromanaged by spontaneous polls among the audience? After the vote has ended on July 31, who will implement the changes? Who decided the time limits for this poll, and the criteria for who can vote (account 3 months ago, 500 edits total)? To an outside reader it might seem like anybody can make the rules and decide anything. Does this mean I can start a new poll on the same subject in September?
I don't mind an opinion poll. I don't mind the front page being redesigned. What I do question is the right to initiate new polls or institutions (last time it was the community council) that take the shape of government over the WMF. The WMF should be ruled according to its bylaws, not by spontaneous mobs.
I don't even know whether the design of the www.wikipedia.org front page is the responsibility of the WMF board, its chairman or the CEO.
The contents of that page is determined by anyone with the power to edit protect pages on meta, namely http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Www.wikipedia.org_template
Thomas Dalton wrote:
I don't even know whether the design of the www.wikipedia.org front page is the responsibility of the WMF board, its chairman or the CEO.
The contents of that page is determined by anyone with the power to edit protect pages on meta, namely http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Www.wikipedia.org_template
Ah, great! I didn't know this. This means we do have a way to implement the results of the current poll. Perhaps there is even a time plan for getting it done? This should be mentioned on the page of the poll, but it still isn't.
Lars Aronsson wrote:
Filip Maljkovic wrote (on behalf of Waldir):
I would like to request your attention to a vote that will start this midnight, regarding a rearrangement of the top ten Wikipedias that are displayed on the main wikipedia portal
Please head to the poll http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub#Top_10_Wikipedias.28poll.29 to vote. I hope to see you there! --Waldir
You failed to mention what sort of authority or mandate this poll has been given, compared to all previous opinions, votes and polls on the same topic in recent years.
Apparently the same as previous years...
I don't even know whether the
design of the www.wikipedia.org front page is the responsibility of the WMF board, its chairman or the CEO.
No, no, and no. At least, unless the community decides to put something illegal in the USA, I hope that the CEO, the Chair or the board will always have the sense not to decide they have the responsibility of the design of this page. What would be next if they do ? Oh, presumably, I guess the community would be served by a "we need to improve the communication and we'll serve the readers with a video of Jimmy asking funds to the crowds". And if so, what will be next ? WMF being in charge of deciding the design of all main pages ? WMF deciding to be in charge of deciding of the editing policy ? WMF deciding who is allowed to be sysop ?
Will they agree to be
micromanaged by spontaneous polls among the audience?
Are will they agree to micromanage the projects ???
After the
vote has ended on July 31, who will implement the changes? Who decided the time limits for this poll, and the criteria for who can vote (account 3 months ago, 500 edits total)? To an outside reader it might seem like anybody can make the rules and decide anything. Does this mean I can start a new poll on the same subject in September?
I don't mind an opinion poll. I don't mind the front page being redesigned. What I do question is the right to initiate new polls or institutions (last time it was the community council) that take the shape of government over the WMF. The WMF should be ruled according to its bylaws, not by spontaneous mobs.
Well, the projects largely run on precedent and consensus. Hopefully, if you start a new poll in september, you will get 10 people telling you "are you nuts, we just voted on this !" and no one will come vote on your poll. When you really think of it, the ENTIRE project has been run by spontaneous "mobs" since 2001, and up to date, it has been pretty successful.
Fact is, our projects are not, should not, be run by WMF. If we take the line that WMF is a host provider, then the host provider does not decide what is in the projects. If the WMF decide of the way the projects are run, then WMF is not a host, it is THE editor of the project.
WMF did not come before, or even at the same time than the projects. It came *after* because it was meant to support them, to help them do what the projects could not do themselves (in particular funding). Not to run them. It was never meant to run the projects.
Now, you ask one good question though. "Who will implement the changes ?". Well the developers. That is... the ones paid by the Foundation. What if they refuse to do so, on the principle that, say, the ED has opposed them doing so ? That's a fair question. There are various alternatives. What do citizens do when they do not agree with the way their government goes beyond running the state, but start trying to run their personal lives. Voting differently at next elections, demonstrating in the streets, sending petitions, requesting resignation of the prime minister, throwing a revolution, moving to another country where the grass is greener...
I am actually a bit abashed by your questions and hope that they have not been planted in your minds. But to second your questionning about "institutions", I fail to understand the relative opposition to a wiki council sort of thing. In the past, on the projects, certain decisions were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew, some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created. I know some complain arbcom are not working so well, but can you really figure an active community of 400 people making the decision to ban a bugger ? What a huge loss of time for 400 people ! Huge opportunity for internal warring as well. I, for a start, think much more efficient to delegate certain decision making to a subgroup.
That said, I also think that decisions such as new wikipedia.org main page SHOULD BE KEPT global, with no delegation of power, because there are one of these last few opportunities for different linguistic communities to work together to come to ONE decision. That's a typical barnraising event (just as deciding logos) that makes wonder to make people feel their opinion matter and that they belong to a global project. The huge benefits of having poeple feel this warmth of belonging largely outweight the inconveniences of this little anarchy.
Ant
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In the past, on the projects, certain decisions were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew, some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created.
Replace "the entire communities" with "Jimmy Wales" and that last sentence is correct.
Anthony wrote:
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In the past, on the projects, certain decisions were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew, some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created.
Replace "the entire communities" with "Jimmy Wales" and that last sentence is correct.
On the english wikipedia, that's correct. Elsewhere, not... :-)
Ant
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:10 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In the past, on the projects, certain decisions were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew, some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created.
Replace "the entire communities" with "Jimmy Wales" and that last sentence is correct.
On the english wikipedia, that's correct. Elsewhere, not... :-)
Ah, good point, I misread you.
As an ob-on-topic question, have any of the other projects managed to define "consensus" in some reasonable manner? Is an equivalent term even used in the non-English projects?
Anthony, 8 luglio 2008 17.01
As an ob-on-topic question, have any of the other projects managed to define "consensus" in some reasonable manner? Is an equivalent term even used in the non-English projects?
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Consensus&action=edi... .
Nemo
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 11:50 AM, Nemo_bis nemowiki@gmail.com wrote:
Anthony, 8 luglio 2008 17.01
As an ob-on-topic question, have any of the other projects managed to define "consensus" in some reasonable manner? Is an equivalent term even used in the non-English projects?
See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Consensus&action=edi... .
For those of you following at home, who may be as confused by this response as I was, I think Nemo's referring to the list of interwiki links for [[Wikipedia:Consensus]], implying that yes, many projects do have an equivalent concept.
I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
Anthony:
I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
[[it:Wikipedia:Consenso]] was translated from en.wiki. It does not actually define what "consensus" means, implies that there is consensus when nobody changes your edit (on the article, policy or whatever) - i.e. there is no edit war -, and focuses on what can be done to achieve this, referring to concepts like NPOV, Wikipedia is not a democracy, Assume good faith and - about polls and surveys - «Non correre alle urne» (lit. «do not run to the polls»: [[m:Don't vote on everything]], [[m:Polls are evil]]). [[fr:Wikipédia:Consensus]] quotes this message: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-July/026513.html.
Nemo
I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the power to undo any change.
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the power to undo any change.
That may be your definition of "consensus", but it's certainly not the only one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making suggest that there is much more to consensus decision making than just letting everyone do whatever they want. In fact, what you describe sounds more like anarchy than consensus.
The model described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus seems somewhat close to the practice I've seen on the English projects, at least in those areas that have decisionmakers who formally declare whether or not consensus has been reached (e.g. AfD). Interestingly, [[Wikipedia:Consensus]] doesn't even seem to link to that page or point to the IETF model.
2008/7/9 Anthony wikimail@inbox.org:
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the power to undo any change.
That may be your definition of "consensus", but it's certainly not the only one. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making suggest that there is much more to consensus decision making than just letting everyone do whatever they want. In fact, what you describe sounds more like anarchy than consensus.
I didn't say consensus was just letting everyone do what they want, it's what naturally evolves out of letting everyone do what they want (or, rather, letting everyone stop anyone else doing what they want, which is subtly different). Since anyone can just undo anything it requires people to stop and talk about anything controversial and discuss it until they reach a compromise that everyone agrees not to undo (not the same as everyone supporting it, that's unanimity rather than consensus). You throw in a little peer pressure which prevents a tiny minority being overly stubborn (they're allowed to be a little stubborn, otherwise you have a tyranny of the majority, not consensus), and you have consensus decision making.
The model described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus seems somewhat close to the practice I've seen on the English projects, at least in those areas that have decisionmakers who formally declare whether or not consensus has been reached (e.g. AfD). Interestingly, [[Wikipedia:Consensus]] doesn't even seem to link to that page or point to the IETF model.
Most decisions on the English Wikipedia are made using true consensus. Bold-Revert-Discuss is basically a description of consensus decision making, and that (and slight variations) is what's used for the vast majority of content decisions. It becomes increasingly difficult to reach a true consensus as the number of people involves increases, which is why things like RfA and AfD end up using rough consensus, which is somewhere between consensus and democracy (basically, you accept that you aren't going to please everyone and just ignore stubborn minorities - although RfA tends to just ignore all minorities due to the lack of any real discussion). True consensus, by its very nature, doesn't require someone to determine consensus, it just requires someone to think there's a consensus, perform the action and observe that no-one reverts it (at least, on Wikipedia it's generally one person, in other situations it may be a group effort to get things rolling).
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the power to undo any change.
Which implies that Wikipedia consensus is actually the power of the person with the longest breath...
2008/7/9 Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:
On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Thomas Dalton thomas.dalton@gmail.com wrote:
I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the power to undo any change.
Which implies that Wikipedia consensus is actually the power of the person with the longest breath...
Don't underestimate the power of peer pressure - most people will give in if everyone else disagrees with them. Also, most people are concerned more with the bigger picture of making an encyclopaedia rather than with the exact wording of one particular sentence in one particular article, so will willingly concede in the interests of the project because they recognise that people's time could be better spent. When they won't, consensus has failed and some other method of making a decision is required (eg. blocking the edit warrior and doing what everyone else wants).
For those of you following at home, who may be as confused by this response as I was, I think Nemo's referring to the list of interwiki links for [[Wikipedia:Consensus]], implying that yes, many projects do have an equivalent concept.
I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
The chinese version was originally a translation from an earlier english version. It was later customized a little. It says basically in the best situation a consensus is a result of a discussion when no one opposes that result. But in most cases such an ideal consensus is not possible so a pole is needed in such a situation. The result of a pole is not a consensus, but it most likely reflects how the majority of the community see the problem and thus a mean to find a consensus. In most cases if 2/3 of the voters are in agreement then it is considered a quite good consensus. In some cases a more higher percentage is needed (for example for admin an agreement of 85% is needed and for bureaucrats an agreement of 90% is needed).
Ting
Anthony wrote:
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:10 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
Anthony wrote:
On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Florence Devouard Anthere9@yahoo.com wrote:
In the past, on the projects, certain decisions were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew, some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created.
Replace "the entire communities" with "Jimmy Wales" and that last sentence is correct.
On the english wikipedia, that's correct. Elsewhere, not... :-)
Ah, good point, I misread you.
You could both be right ... when you consider that in the most ancient days the English Wikipedia was the only game in town. ;-)
Ec
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org