On 11/14/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Would it be useful to separate discussion of new projects (incl. languages) to a separate mailing list? It's currently taking a
I would like that. In fact, I would go so far as to say that proliferation of mailing lists is a positive thing, when done the right way... but that we do not currently do it the right way.
One model which has been successful for other large online communities is to spin off smaller topical lists when an active topic arises (especially when the same set of people are always responding to threads on that topic), with some simple structure that passes summaries back to a parent list.
Example : the list carries out initial discussing, produces summaries of fixed-time topics, and periodically summarizes ongoing threads. Someone is responsible for passing summaries onto a parent list, and for bringing discussions back to the parent list when they are more relevant there -- e.g., when ther eis some discussion being made that the whole community should take part in..
disproportionate amount of general mailing list traffic (particularly wikipedia-l and foundation-l), so discussion of improving existing Wikipedias tends to get lost in the mess. It's also a frequently
Right. It would be useful to have a new- and minority-languages list. The people who chime in on those
Of course, there is a danger that only a self-selecting and non-representative group would subscribe to such a mailing list, but
There is already that dnager -- only a self-selecting group bothers to read the relevant threads, and sometimes people delete even important new-language announceemnts or ideas because the occasional floods of debate make them trigger happy.
(I don't pretend this is an ideal solution either, especially since it adds to the proliferation of mailing lists, but the benefits seem to me
Starting discussions on a small, focused mailing lists can be efficient; especially when there is at the same time too much traffic on large lists (a common reason for unsubscribing), and too little serious discussion of important topics (another common reason for unsubscribing).
SJ
Support Delirium's idea and I concur with Sj.
On 11/17/05, SJ 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/14/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Would it be useful to separate discussion of new projects (incl. languages) to a separate mailing list? It's currently taking a
I would like that. In fact, I would go so far as to say that proliferation of mailing lists is a positive thing, when done the right way... but that we do not currently do it the right way. the whole community should take part in..
disproportionate amount of general mailing list traffic (particularly wikipedia-l and foundation-l), so discussion of improving existing Wikipedias tends to get lost in the mess. It's also a frequently
Right. It would be useful to have a new- and minority-languages list.
From my impression through discussions and testwiki activities on meta,
perhaps it is fruitful to separate general new project proposals and new language wikis. The former proposers might be interested in the latter, but not vice versa assumedly.
-- Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org email: Aphaia @ gmail (dot) com
On 11/20/05, Aphaia aphaia@gmail.com wrote:
Support Delirium's idea and I concur with Sj.
On 11/17/05, SJ 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
On 11/14/05, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Would it be useful to separate discussion of new projects (incl. languages) to a separate mailing list? It's currently taking a
I would like that. In fact, I would go so far as to say that proliferation of mailing lists is a positive thing, when done the right way... but that we do not currently do it the right way. the whole community should take part in..
disproportionate amount of general mailing list traffic (particularly wikipedia-l and foundation-l), so discussion of improving existing Wikipedias tends to get lost in the mess. It's also a frequently
Right. It would be useful to have a new- and minority-languages list.
From my impression through discussions and testwiki activities on meta,
perhaps it is fruitful to separate general new project proposals and new language wikis. The former proposers might be interested in the latter, but not vice versa assumedly.
-- Aphaea@*.wikipedia.org
Hoi, When the new project proposals and new language requests are done in a seperate mailing list, this mailing list will not have a representative population of the Wikimedia crowd. The discussions, even when interesting, will not lead to a consensus that is representative. This in turn will lead to a consensus brought as what is to be done which will be angrily denied to be a consensus by those who were not aware of what was going on.
All the overly much huha about new languages needs its place. If there is one thing wrong is that too little is said about other things. This is not remedied by removing this not ununimportant subject from the mailing lists.
Thanks, GerardM
On 11/21/05, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When the new project proposals and new language requests are done in a seperate mailing list, this mailing list will not have a representative population of the Wikimedia crowd. The discussions, even when interesting, will not lead to a consensus that is representative. This in turn will lead to a consensus brought as what is to be done which will be angrily denied to be a consensus by those who were not aware of what was going on.
All the overly much huha about new languages needs its place. If there is one thing wrong is that too little is said about other things. This is not remedied by removing this not ununimportant subject from the mailing lists.
Thanks, GerardM
I don't see the harm. So a new project is started which some people would have opposed if they had known about it? What they don't know won't hurt them.
Why does there need to be a consensus to start a new project in the first place?
Anthony
On 11/21/05, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, When the new project proposals and new language requests are done in a seperate mailing list, this mailing list will not have a representative population of the Wikimedia crowd. The discussions, even when interesting, will not lead to a consensus that is representative.
I'm not sure exactly what you were responding to above. My suggestion, at least, was not for the new mailing lists to produce consensus -- this would come about on the main mailing list once a more heated and detailed discussion has been played out on the topic-specific list. I am suggesting that topics which tend to a) be quite heated and b) involve the same small set of people over and over, should be given their own list for the standard argument-cycle to play out; and then can post summaries of that cycle to the main mailing list. When consensus needs to be reached, the whole discussion could move to the main list, or better yet a suitable wiki.
SJ
On 11/22/05, SJ 2.718281828@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure exactly what you were responding to above. My suggestion, at least, was not for the new mailing lists to produce consensus -- this would come about on the main mailing list once a more heated and detailed discussion has been played out on the topic-specific list. I am suggesting that topics which tend to a) be quite heated and b) involve the same small set of people over and over, should be given their own list for the standard argument-cycle to play out; and then can post summaries of that cycle to the main mailing list. When consensus needs to be reached, the whole discussion could move to the main list, or better yet a suitable wiki.
SJ
Well, if you're going to obtain organization-wide consensus, then it'd be a good idea to obtain consensus within a self-selected sub-committee first. Of course, that assumes that by consensus you mean something actually approaching consensus.
It's a good idea in theory, but signing up for and using multiple mailing lists is somewhat of a pain in the ass, so I'm not so sure how well it would work in practice.
Anthony
wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org