doc wrote:
Ending the instruction creep is simple - switch it on for all auto-confirmed users. Or, alternatively, allow all users a preference to switch it on or off for themselves.
I would support either of those alternatives... or the one that has been forced on us by the current design of the feature, in which we have to create and maintain and enforce a policy about who gets it or not. I would support the second option if that is the will of the community, whereas I am getting the feeling that it is not.
But I do not support that this sort of feature, which is clearly not unanimously wanted at all, should be decided by the developers or the Foundation (Anthere) rather than the community.
JeLuF did the right thing, given the limited knowledge that he had. He's a good guy and I am highly confident he has no interest at all in usurping the traditional decisionmaking processes of English Wikipedia. He saw a poll, it looked like a solid majority, and he assumed that meant he was supposed to carry out the will of the community. Not a problem there, except...
The English Wikipedia has traditionally had better ways of making decisions than voting.
So, that's what we're going to do. The only problem at the moment is that there seem to be about a half-dozen different similarly named pages which purport to be a discussion or poll about this, and there is not the simple clarity that we need in order to be able to move forward rationally. This will surely be cleared up soon.
--Jimbo