[Foundation-l] On closing projects

[GerardM]

Hoi,
Steward already play a role when there is a need for support in small
projects. They provide some of the glue that allows for the functioning of
particularly the smaller projects. When there is a need for more stewards,
it is considered that these are people that are given a position of trust.

When stewards limit themselves because of a few hecklers, they in essence
leave necessary work to be done by others that do not been given trust in
the same way. The language committee is and should be focussed on a narrow
band of activities and should only get itself involved when language is an
issue.

Given that the stewards are in and of themselves a varied group of people
who are deeply embedded in the WMF, I would agree that they would be the
most suitable to make up a "global arbitration committee". My fear is that
when they do not take up this challenge, it would lead to more fragmentation
of our organisation. This would make matters worse. It will then wait with
until some matters become really bad and give the WMF a really bad press.

Thanks,
    GerardM

On 5/9/07, Guillaume Paumier <guillom.pom at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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
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