[Foundation-l] mo.wikipedia.org

[phoebe ayers]

On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 4:18 AM, Gerard Meijssen
<gerard.meijssen at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> All projects are started with consent of the board. I take it that the board
> has the final say on blocking / removing projects.  I can imagine that the
> WMF office / organisation takes this decision on there own accord. These are
> the two who have the power to establish facts.
> Thanks,
>     GerardM
>
> On Sat, Nov 15, 2008 at 1:11 PM, Michael Everson <everson at evertype.com>wrote:
>
>> The powers that be, Gerard?
>>
>> Michael Everson * http://www.evertype.com

Because I'm sure the Board will be *thrilled* to get involved in a
dispute that involves nationalism, factionalism, complicated
linguistics, hurt feelings, confusion about what's "true", and heated
debate and assumptions of poor faith on all sides. Come on. How is the
Board supposed to determine what the best outcome is when the
community members involved can't get anywhere near consensus? (Or can
they? I confess to not reading these threads closely). Our Board
members work hard on behalf of the projects, but they are not
specially endowed with the ability to second-guess the ISO, to make
decisions for community members about what to call the language they
speak, or (alas!) to prevent deep-rooted drama about such matters.
It's easy to think that things would be so much easier if only the
right person was in charge so *someone* could make a decision... but
that is not the way our projects work. Instead, (as you know, Gerard)
people step up to work on the issues that interest them. Sure, the
Board could choose to nuke all the Wikipedias where people can't agree
on what language they are written in. But that's not so much of a
solution as a "please shut up about this issue already!" statement.*

-- phoebe

* Which, I grant you, as an uninvolved party seems pretty darn
appealing some days.

p.s. Aren't some of the wikis in two or more scripts? I recall that at
least a couple of them have multiple tabs at the top where you can
switch between scripts if you like. Is that somehow not an option in
this case?