[Foundation-l] Policy modification (was possible reconsideration)

[Mark Williamson]

I think that if the will of the community goes against the decision of
the committee, perhaps it is time for the committee to reconsider.

A single person or even a handful of people disagreeing is one thing;
dozens of people are quite different.

Mark

2008/5/26 Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen at gmail.com>:
> Hoi,
> Ray as a candidate to the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, you
> are now in the race to win votes.  That makes you a politician and you have
> to say and do the political things in order to win. I know and respect you
> enough that I expect different shades of grey as a consequence.
>
> When you ask people to do a task, when you give people the responsibility to
> do a job you either give the authority to do the job or you do not. The
> language committee has as its task to be responsible for the process to
> create functioning projects in new languages and new projects in existing
> languages. The objective is to create new languages that are objectively the
> language they say they are and to ensure that there is a reasonable chance
> for these projects to succeed. As a consequence a policy was formulated.
> This policy has clear benefits. There have been people pushing their point
> of view to change the policy. Solutions have been proposed that have as a
> consequence that people have to do things in order to have their POV taken
> in consideration. When they do not want to do this, It is their choice and
> it is for them to live with the consequences.
>
> It is exactly because the language committee has the authority to insist on
> the implementation of its policies that it is a functioning committee. When
> the community is free to discuss and force changes to the policy at all time
> because they do not like that their exception will not be granted, then the
> amount of time spend on endless talk will kill off the interest in being
> part of what will become a dysfunctional committee.
>
> Ray my question to you: are we a talking shop or are we to do what we aim to
> do.
>
> NB I am extremely happy and grateful that the new projects that have been
> approved by the board have been created.
>
> Thanks Tim !!
>
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On Mon, May 26, 2008 at 10:00 AM, Ray Saintonge <saintonge at telus.net> wrote:
>
>> Jesse Plamondon-Willard wrote:
>> > Ray Saintonge wrote:
>> >
>> >> If a proposed amendment fails to meet
>> >> community approval criteria it fails, and that's the end of it.  It is
>> >> not the mandate of  a subcommittee to override that.  I am well aware of
>> >> the problem of inadequate community participation, but community silence
>> >> does not mean consent, and without a predetermined minimum level of
>> >> community participation no policy or policy amendment should be
>> >> considered as approved.
>> >>
>> > That is incorrect. The language subcommittee was specifically tasked
>> > with formulating and implementing a language subdomain creation
>> > policy. The committee furthermore did not override the community. Some
>> > community members questioned the need for that clause (long after it
>> > was introduced), and failed to achieve any consensus whatsoever on
>> > whether to keep, change, or remove it. As such, no change was made.
>> > Whether committees *should* make decisions or depend on the wider
>> > community to do so is a very different discussion than whether they
>> > *can*.
>> >
>> I can't speak in terms of the factual specifics for the language policy
>> because I did not follow it as it was developing.  I don't see it as
>> appropriate that a committee would make policies simply because it can.
>> That's an attitude that distances the committee from the community.
>> "Override" is probably a stronger word than what I would use in the
>> circumstances, when the result was based on an absence of consensus.
>> What really needs to be clarified with respect to any committee is a
>> demarcation of the committee's job in relation to the community's rights
>> to decide.
>> > As an aside, I'm a little confused. You say that committees should not
>> > make or change policies, but you are a member of the Provisional
>> > Volunteer Council. Do you intend the PVC to simply be a proposal mill,
>> > throwing out ideas for the community to debate?
>> >
>> >
>> That's an important question.  In general I would say more yes than no,
>> but it's still an important point that needs to be hammered out by all
>> the PVC.  With the number of active projects in Wikimedia the Council
>> cannot presume to dictate what each of these projects will do.  If it
>> does that it will soon lose credibility and influence among the
>> communities.  Policies need to go back and forth between committee and
>> community until there is is agreement.  The same also applies to any
>> amendment of existing policy.  Naturally there need to be criteria for
>> what constitutes community agreement.
>>
>> Ec
>>
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