[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Foundation-l] tech team - content community bottleneck

[doc]

David Gerard wrote:
> A note from a dev. If you rant about their evil enough, you can
> successfully get them to say "fine, you do it" and leave. Then you can
> feel a real sense of achievement at your good work for Wikipedia.
> 
> 
> - d.
> 

No-one is calling the dev "evil" - there work is very much appreciated. 
All that is being said, is that a little more care is needed when making 
a call on consensus in an obviously contentious area in our community. 
One decision here, made no doubt in good faith, by a good guy, has 
resulted in a disproportionate amount of drama  - and the nature of 
these decisions is that they are effectively (although not 
theoretically) irrevocable.

All that was needed was a quick e-mail to an arb, or other established 
community member who didn't have a huge axe to grind, and I'm sure he'd 
have been told:

"hm, we've been debating this without resolution for years, so a six-day 
poll at Christmas is not really indicative of anything much - wait a bit"

Anyway, it is a done deal now. I guess all we are looking for is some 
assurance that next time there will be a little more checking.

And I /would/ suggest this is a role that arbs could take on (who 
else?), NOT as policy makers or adjudicates after the fact, but as 
people trusted by the community for sane unbiased judgment - who tend to 
know what's going on - who can give a developer a sanity check as 
regards where the consensus on en.wp lies.

Doc