Hello,

I want to speak of agendas in two senses: first of the agendas some people try to impose upon wikipedia and second of an agenda as a suggestion for better organization of this mailinglist.

First: concerning trolls, obstructive users and so on: I see Wikipedia first of all as a scientific project with the remarkable feature that not only scientists are working at it but also "normal" people. But that doesn't mean that we should give up the standards of scientific research. Wikipedia is big and attractive enough - we don't need contributors who can't behave according to the rules set in Wikiquette and NPOV. More than more restrictive and/or effective banning rules we need rules for ourselves: - Don't give people seeking attention the desired attention (this for the Anti-American page) - Warn politely and _ignore_! - Ban if people violate warnings and continue with their behaviour. - Don't attack a sysop because of a quick ban if the banned person contributed nothing remarkably to wikipedia other than quarrels.

Last week I read in another enclycopedia (about theory of science) - ethics of science, Mertons four norms I think we should adopt: - the quality of research should not be judged by social characteristics of the researcher (like race, religion...) - results of research should be open and free, not secret ;-) - the working attitude of the scientific community should be organized scepticism. Each source or belief should be critically examined. - the researcher should have no interest in the outcomes of his research.

These are ideal norms (like our NPOV), but I think people whose sole interest is to "prove" something (that USA are evil, that "Freiwirtschaft" will solve all economical problems, that Karl the Great didn't exist at all, that the Beatles were the greatest rockband ever) have no place in Wikipedia.

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Second: discussion here often seems to be unproductive. A subject is discussed, several ideas are presented and nothing is done in the end until the same subject comes up a little bit later again. What I propose is some sort of agenda, maybe with a corresponding page at Meta wikipedia. Items can be put there and removed when they are solved for the moment. I'd also like to see f.e. Erik's software patches put there. It's often difficult to distinguish between "just an idea" and an "I'll do it if nobody refuses" up to an "I just implemented it, it's now already on the server."

It easier to solve a clearly defined problem than to keep track of differing opinions presented in no clear order.

An example agenda for actual issues (I added some new which I consider as necessary) * Solution for dealing with uncooperative users needed. * the question of www.wikipedia.org * technical: identifying and removing bottlenecks in the software, tuning the database, implement more intelligent caching/ switching to Postgres (I fear that the constant slowliness of the software may drive more (especially new!) contributors away than Lir & Co. will ever do) * adjusting the focus of the mailinglists: creation of enwiki-l. (Problems with users of the English wikipedia are of absolutely no interest for us international people who have to subscribe to wikipedia-l because people forget to inform the international community of important decisions.) * designing an emergency plan for an attack of automatized vandalism by bots which can happen any time! * decide on a decision making process. This project has become too big for the fuzzy decision making process used till now. * getting a clear policy for unclear copyright issues

Discussions are great, often necessary but in the end we should solve the problems! How to organize this is another question... I imagine groups of people willing to solve a problem, discussing it, work out possible and clear defined solutions and present this as a result to the whole community who should decide then upon which solution is to be taken (without big discussion - for this they should have joined the working group) proposed steps: * put an item on the agenda (maybe also assign a priority) * form a working group of all people interested in and work out solutions. * present the solutions (with pro and contra arguments) to the community * let the community decide * implement the solution * remove item from the agenda

This procedere requires a lot of discipline but discipline is something we all have in abundance, don't we? ;-)

Since Ed mentioned my name as one of the frustrated contributors who might be driven away by Lir & Co, one clarification: I will never leave because of some trolls, but if most discussions here continue to go in circles without other results than the status quo I will restrict my activities to my field of expertise in the German wikipedia, unsubscribe all mailinglists other than the German and give up the German embassy.

I really like politics but if this here remains a debating club I better go to write articles.

greetings, elian