[WikiEN-l] WP:V, WP:RS, WP:NOR and WP:ATT

[Matthew Brown]

On 3/21/07, George Herbert <george.herbert at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 3/21/07, Guy Chapman aka JzG <guy.chapman at spamcop.net> wrote:
> > On Wed, 21 Mar 2007 14:27:42 -0700, Jossi Fresco <jossifresco at mac.com>
> > wrote:
> >
> > >That is why this is so painful to witness these claims of "it was not
> > >widely know".
> >
> > I knew there was a discussion months ago, I had absolutely no idea -
> > none at all - that it was still active, let alone about to replace the
> > other policies.  Where have I been all that time?  In the usual
> > places.
>
> This was my impression as well.  I didn't mind it, but it did suprise me.

I missed out on it until just before it was about to 'go live' as well
- and I'm on the freaking Arbcom.  Had a quick read and liked the idea
at least of not having contradictory policy pages, and it seems it was
handled pretty well albeit conservatively.

> Likely lesson: Wikipedia has exceeded process critical mass.  We now
> have more things going on more quickly than the existing static
> process can adequately track and keep people aware of.

Wikipedia quite a long time ago exceeded the size where anyone
reasonably active knew all the important details. It's finally got to
the point that reasonably active people can miss big freaking huge
details because they're not going on in their corner of the site.

> In a business, this sort of discovery triggers a round of executive
> and management soul-searching, followed by a painful round of process
> consultants, executive retreats, the creation of new business process
> management groups, a couple of new VPs, etc etc.

Many of which don't actually help but give the executives and
management something to do, but anyway ...

Personally, I largely trust the Wiki process, and believe that it's
unlikely that anything that big will go through without a few sane
people getting involved and sorting it out, even if I'm not one of
them.

-Matt