[Foundation-l] On closing projects

[Guillaume Paumier]

Hello,

On 5/7/07, Erik Moeller <erik at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> On 5/7/07, Jesse Martin (Pathoschild) <pathoschild at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > Stewards cannot do what you suggest as stewards. One of the core
> > principles of stewardship is that they do not make decisions; see
> > <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Steward_policies#Don.27t_decide>.
>
> That policy makes sense on the project level (small wiki which promote
> their own admins). It makes no sense whatsoever on the Meta level.


Stewards are often criticised for considering meta-wiki as their private
courtyard (simply because they are some of the most active users there due
to their regular presence on this wiki). Though, stewards have no special
assignment on meta; they only use it because it's the platform from where
they manage users' rights. Like Jesse, I would say stewards cannot (for the
moment) do what you suggest as stewards.

The steward statute is a global thing, it has never (afaik) been about being
some kind of super meta-user. As well as stewards don't get automatically
the sysop flag on meta (they RfA like everybody), I don't think stewards'
opinion should weigh more than the other's about decisions such as closing
wikis (neither as single stewards, nor as a group of stewards).

If the board decides to give this responsibility to stewards, that will
entail a change in the policy and that shall be done by an official
resolution explaining the ins and the outs of this decision.

-- 
Guillaume Paumier
[[m:User:guillom]]
"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have
imagined." Henry David Thoreau