I wrote:
Later, there will have to be some major policy decisions.
Toby responded:
What major policy decisions will have to be made for all Wikipedias? Very few, I hope. That's the best solution to scalability problems.
Well, that's a very good point. The one thing that I have in mind will be the final selection of a method of driving towards 1.0, as well as parameters for what that means, exactly.
It's a systemwide thing because of (in my mind, legitimate) concerns about what any sort of approval process will do to our community.
Here's a more detailed example, and I bring it up not so we can debate it right now, but just as an example of the sort of legitimate big picture debates we might expect to see in the future.
Let's say we have a good, solid 1.0 approval process well underway, to the point that we are rapidly approaching a situation where we have a high quality 'stable' release that we can all be proud of. The question naturally arises: what should random visitors to our site see?
1. The currenty live Wikipedia, as we have now? -or- 2. The stable release?
I am in favor of #1, but I do think that there are legitimate arguments for either. I can see that a lot of people might be of very different opinions about it. #1 has the virtue of being more naturally evolution, so it will probably happen by default. But suppose I find that lots and lots of respected contributors are campaigning that we switch to #2, i.e. that random visitors see an approved version of the article, with live edits available by a link to "click here to see the live version".
In such a case as that, my own opinion is not strong enough that I would have any interest in forcing it on everyone against a developing contrary consensus. And it's such a big thing that I can't imagine that we'd get near unanimity.
So that's a big picture decision where I can easily see how a vote could legitimize what we ultimately decide, in such a fashion that even those who 'lost' the vote could support the process as being a fair one. At least *potentially*.
One reason to discuss all this so far in advance is to help to avoid people taking sides on whether or not we are voting based on how they think the outcome of the vote will be. I mean, it wouldn't be good for people to be tempted to say "I think we should just do what Jimbo thinks is best" just because I happen to be taking one side in that particular dispute. And, it wouldn't be good for people to be tempted to say "It's time for Jimbo to step down as benevolent dictator, this is unjust and unfair" just because they don't agree with one particular decision.
As usual, I guess my discussion here is inconclusive but I hope gives some good perspective on why I do take an interest in introducing some more formalized decision procedures.
--Jimbo