--- Rebecca misfitgirl@gmail.com wrote:
While it's nice that Mav is happy about this, I'm still somewhat annoyed.
Well I'm not happy - just *OK* with the outcome. The in-between stuff was rather unpleasant though.
It's clear that there was no consensus in the broader Wikimedia community for this. If there was a discussion on meta, I haven't seen it, so it would only be those people who are subscribed to the list that would've known about this. It's also apparent that even on the list, Mav wasn't the only one with objections.
Turns out that most of those objections were considered and a compromise plan created based on that. The trouble was a complete lack of communication informing everybody about this.
I do agree that more people should have been involved and more time given. Saying things like 'most people wouldn't get the idea so let's not bother them about it' is kinda paternalist, IMO. If consensus could not be reached, we could have a Wikimedia-wide vote where people could choose 1 to 5 for each question; 1 (strongly disagree), 2 (somewhat disagree), 3 (don't know, don't care), 4 (somewhat agree), and 5 (strongly agree). So the people who don't know or don't care about that question will not mess up the results one way or another by that fact.
But because the three or four proponents of this shouted him (and others) down more vocally, it seems the board decides to go off and do their own thing. I don't make the accusation that it was underhanded, but at the same time, I hope it won't be something that's repeated.
Actually I thought is was more the other way around... :)
If there is a non-forking policy, where is it, and why haven't I heard of it until now? If there is conditions placed on the creation of Wikispecies, what were they? Disclosure, people, disclosure.
Due to miscommunication it isn't easy to find. But here you go: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Board_meetings/5_September_2004 http://species.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikispecies_Charter
-- mav (aka Daniel Mayer)
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? New and Improved Yahoo! Mail - 100MB free storage! http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail