[Foundation-l] Stewards are ignoring requests for CheckUser information?

[Anthere]

Hello

>>{{Explanation of getting noticed by Foundation
> 
> people}}
> 
> I completely understand how someone from a project big
> or small 
> becomes trusted and agree that it can only happen by
> getting to 
> know a person.  What I meant was in the other
> direction; that the 
> trusted people don't check in on the small projects. 
> Before the 
> copyright issue I always assumed the Foundation knew
> generally 
> what happened at Wikisource.  I certainly thought some
> one was 
> reading our policy pages and approved of them.  That
> someone 
> made sure we had an active bueraucrat and responsible
> admistrators.  
> However in reality the Foundation knows very little of
> how smaller 
> projects are run and makes no effort that I know of to
> check-in.  
> The only attention such projects recieve is if they
> come to a 
> Foundation level people with a problem.

That is correct. Usually, attention is given when there is a problem.
One can not assume the Foundation is aware of everything that is going 
on on all projects. And one certainly should NOT assume the Foundation 
knows and approve of local policies. For a simple and good reason. The 
Foundation is 3 people on the projects (Angela, Jimbo and myself). 
Whilst the projects are 8 and some are in over 100 languages. So, 
knowing and approving is simply impossible. Plus, do we really want that ?

  That is not
> good.  

Well. I only half agree.

On one hand, our project is held together by a couple of major rules, 
which should absolutely be followed by all projects. Hmmm, I see only a 
few ones
1) general goal of a project should be respected, whatever the language.
2) content should be freely usable, freely reusable and free to modify.
3) content should follow NPOV rule

And that's about it.

On the other hand, our project is not run in a top-down fashion. There 
is no reason why the Foundation should know or approve local project 
policies.  So, generally, I see not why "this is not good" unless the 
policy is about the goal, or the licence or the npov.


>>How are they regarded ?

> They are regarded in this way.  They are left alone
> without guidelines or
> advice and told to make thier own community; govern
> themselves.

Well, yes... it is great it is this way :-)

Then when
> everything seems to be going fine some one steps in
> and says "Oh you guys
> are doing *that*.  That is no good, you have get rid
> of that.   And you must make up your 
> own rules with the details of what goes and what can
> stay.  Sorry I can't really give 
> advice"  And then they make new policies and no one is
> willing say the new policy
> actually kosher.  So they hold their breath and hope
> the whole thing doesn't repeat 
> again.  

I see what you mean.
But again, I have no idea who stepped in and who told you you were doing 
wrong etc... So, I can't really comment and mostly can not really say 
who could better help you set up new policies.


> 
>>>{{Intergration and Trust are needed}}
> 
> 
>>Speaking of trust. One suggestion made last summer
> 
> was that those given 
> 
>>checkuser access should provide their real names.
> 
> What is your opinion 
> 
>>about this ?
>>If the Foundation trusts those with checkusers to use
> 
> it according to 
> 
>>policy, would checkusers trust the Foundation enough
> 
> to provide their 
> 
>>real names ?
> 
> 
> I am surprised that this is not already required.  I
> think you mean the 
> Board would have access to the real names and not the
> people 
> who are being checked, right?

Correct


>>>{{Old copyright policy problems}}
> 
> 
>>No. It is worse than this...
>>The Foundation board did not discuss this issue, even
> 
> less took a 
> 
>>decision about copyrights on wikisource. I presume it
> 
> came from a 
> 
>>discussion between Jimbo and legal bodies. I am
> 
> intentionally vague on 
> 
>>your UN resolutions and Crown legislation deletions
> 
> because I am not 
> 
>>aware of it.
>>Sorry.
> 
> 
> That is worse.  Really the discussion happened on this
> list.  We never 
> got any real official ruling just vague comments that
> GFDL is good
> everything else is bad.  This really not good enough
> for many
> reasons I will not get into.  It is not simple but I
> do not want to 
> force answers from people who are not knowledgable,
> because
> that is what caused the deletion of UN and Crown in my
> opinion.
> 
> 
>>>{{Being cautious with copyright waiting for the
> 
> other shoe to drop}}
> 
> 
>>This is a problem. Have you talked to JImbo for
> 
> clarification ? You are 
> 
>>lucky, you share a language... Imagine japanese
> 
> editors...
> 
> See above.  Yes I think some other languages are going
> to have
> rude shock about these kind of issues in the future. 
> It will be worse
> because they will be much further along than we were
> when this 
> happened. Thats why I am bringing this up.  I want to
> find a solution
> before there is another 6 months of work put into
> these projects
> that will have to be deleted.  I am thinking of those
> people most of
> all.

Would you be interested to create a group of people whose goals would be
* To study which languages should be covered in our projects, or not
* To study the wiseness to open a new language of a given project 
(according to number of interested editors etc...)
* To gather a collection of pages of rules and guidelines to mandatorily 
translate in the future language before any creation of the new wiki
* To collect pages to suggest new wikis to help them find their way in 
the jungle (with recommandations such as "register to foundation-l", 
"follow requests for permission on meta" etc...)


Do you think that would be interesting ?
If so, would you agree to lead the creation of that group ?

Ant


>>>{{ either too gun-shy to keep contributing, or
> 
> decide to just ignore
> 
>>>the rules they feel are arbitrary.}}
> 
> 
>>I am a proponent of ignore all rules...
> 
> 
> Well yes, but we don't want people to go too far out
> of bounds.
> 
> 
>>PS : do you like mint tea ?
> 
> 
> I really do like all kinds of tea.  But I never make
> it at home
> I only order it at rrestaurants. 
> 
> BirgitteSB
> 
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