[Foundation-l] Wikipedia:Office Actions

Andre Engels andreengels at gmail.com
Fri Apr 27 00:51:53 UTC 2007


2007/4/26, Peter van Londen <londenp at gmail.com>:
> Wp:Office is until now only official on EN:WP (I mean by that: published
> only there); it has not been spread to the other projects; imho this was not
> a mistake, nobody found it necessary to do that (maybe because there was not
> a need for that policy elsewhere?).
>
> If it was meant to be foundation-wide, it would have meant that this policy
> would have been properly introduced to all the projects, which it was not.
>
> My proposal is a way to help the office in many ways:
> 1) make the problem a problem of that particular community. If left to the
> office it is their problem and it stays there problem, they need to
> follow-up on any deletion or change made (as it might be reverted, which
> does happen). My thought is that they have other things to do and should be
> able to delegate.

However, to do so we still need a policy to ensure that the delegation
works. So there still has to be a policy saying that the Foundation
can tell this person or that person to take action. Delegation is not
a solution unless you can be sure the person delegated to is actually
capable and willing to take the action. So we should have a policy
that certain people can be ordered by the foundation to do certain
actions. In other words, an office policy.

> 2) language problems: If the problematic content (and follow-up) is in a
> language the Office can not read, cooperation of that particular community
> would be needed anyway.

So?$

> 3) acceptance of Foundation-intrusion by communities is probably less than
> if trusted people delete the content (but it does not mean there won't be a
> problem with reverts, after all it is an open environment).

On the other hand, it's also an easy way to get rid of the trust,
unless there is a clear policy allowing them to do it. In other words,
an office policy.

> 4) Sebastian: I think the authority of the Foundation will not be challenged
> by the trusted people: If the Foundation says it needs to be done, because
> the project is in danger: no one will ask for further explanation and just
> do what is required.

You THINK. How can you be sure? And how can you be sure the community
itself will accept that those trusted people do something that is
required? There has been a case on the English Wikipedia where another
sysop reverted an office action because he did not know it was one.
And that was an office action by someone explicitly allowed to do so.
So what if you let an office action do by a local moderator/bureaucrat
or a steward, without there being any policy on the project itself
that would allow the action? Would it not be much easier, and much
clearer, to specify that there are indeed actions obliged by the
foundation and that they can be recognized so-and-so?

> In the end: the policy is workable for the English projects, I sincerely
> doubt this policy would work with languages the Office can not understand.
> It is better to use the structures already in place.

Problem is that none of those structures have sufficient power to
ensure that actions are taken. I have nothing against involving local
sysops and bureaucrats or known stewards. I do have something against
not having the rules in place that enable the actions to be taken in
the first place.


-- 
Andre Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
ICQ: 6260644  --  Skype: a_engels



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