[Foundation-l] Rules committee; was Sexual harassment in Wikipedia

[Ray Saintonge]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>On 11/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>  
>
>>Essentially I agree. It all comes down to mature judgement, and who is
>>capable of exercising it.  We have a lot of people who can too easily
>>jump to conclusions.
>>    
>>
>Yes. One question is whether we want every language and project
>community to develop its own policy on these matters, or whether this
>is an area where it makes sense to have a single policy that is
>localized. This goes for checkuser and oversight as well. Perhaps an
>in-between solution makes sense, where the WMF requires that local
>policies identify and propose a group that consists of the most
>trusted users before granting these privileges on a language/project
>level.
>
I can't address the technical requirements for someone with checkuser 
capacity, but technical competence is only one side of the coin.  Good 
judgement, trust and common sense are just as important.  The ideal 
checkuser is effective in both respects.

Rule making on the wiki tends to be chaotic at best, to the point where 
the best way to develop a rule can be to make a rule and hope that 
nobody notices.  No-one can keep up with the process, or be certain of 
the circumstances when a rule was adopted.  Proposing changes can be an 
intimidating process.

I would llike to propose a Rules Committee on the following bases.

       1. Except for minor editorial changes the rules committee would
          not adopt the rules.  It could propose new rules, amendments,
          rule reviews, or repeals, but the actual adoption would be by
          the community affected.  It could develop a rational
          codification of the rules.
       2. The rule committee would be primarily a foundation level
          committee, but could draft rules for any single project or
          group of projects.
       3. Although membership at this stage would be relatively open, no
          person should be a member of the Rules Committee and any
          Arbitration Committee at the same time.  This parallels the
          separation of the legislative and judicial arms of
          governments.  While rule makers must be in a position to look
          at rules in broad terms, arbitrators must be concerned with
          applying existing rules to specific circumstances.
       4. In order to be effective the number of members on the rules
          committee would need to be limited, and equitable means of
          adding or replacing members would need to be developed.
       5. Where applicable the rules committee would need to work
          closely with the Translation Committee when a rule must be
          applied across multiple languages.
       6. Among the higher priorities for the Rule Committee would be
              * Developing the distinction between Foundation, policy
                that needs to be consistent between projects of the same
                type, policy that needs to be consistent between
                projects in the same language, and policy which each
                project may develop separately.
              * Developing a consistent policy on policy adoption.
              * Developing consistent formats for policies.
       7. Existing policies would be grandfathered until reviewed,
          replaced and readopted.

Initially, this committee would want a closed mailing list, and a number 
of volunteers to see if this experiment is workable.

Any thoughts out there?.
Ec