[Foundation-l] Would you consider being on the Board?

[Walter van Kalken]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

>Michael R. Irwin wrote:
>  
>
>>I have been eagerly awaiting Wikiversity for about three years now as it 
>>was an obvious synergistic project.   I would be curious as to what the 
>>real holdup is with it.   Are we afraid of hardware or bandwidth 
>>limitations?  Are a bunch of self motivated learners to potentially 
>>radical and threatening to the status quo?
>>    
>>
>
>Perhaps the irony is that the board has deliberately chosen not to
>engage in "top down management" and to let this community "manage
>itself".  This has a lot to recommend it, because the wikiversity
>proposal is a lot stronger for it.
>
>But if you are really upset that this community-driven process takes so
>long, then instead of clamoring for the board to not micromanage, you
>should perhaps ask us to do so.  I am quite sure that we could get
>Wikiversity approved and up and running in 2-3 weeks time, if we chose
>to run roughshod over the community to do it.
>
>This is actually a very typical scenario, of course.
>  
>

Although the community should ideally decide about things it is my 
feeling that that is more often than not an utopian thought. The problem 
is everybody tries to throw their opinions in a debate and tries to get 
attention to these opinions. This usually results in an endless debate. 
Many debates within our community therefor are already going on for 2,3 
or more years. This because some people leave. Some people join and new 
views are expressed and the same debate is extended again. Because of 
this we never reach any conclusions to a debate. Which is one of the 
things that make people very tired of wikimedia (me for instance)

I feel that there are 3 solutions:

1) A top down approach. The community gets x time to debate an issue 
(say 1 - 3 months) after that the boards takes this debate into account 
and makes a decision and that is final

2) A variant of 1) The community appoints 1 or 2 discussionleaders. They 
will guide the debate in phases. Thesis->Antithesis etc. And will write 
a conclusion to the debate at the end. And present this conclusion as 
the community consensus and the board has to accept this.

3) The least feasible though I think an interesting option. People start 
to group themselves in parties and every party has 1 person as its 
spokesperson in the debate. This means that it will not become a 
cacophonia of voices and the debate might proceed faster. After 1-3 
months the  spokespersons should reach a consensus which is acceptable 
to most.

Hope someone reads this

Waerth/Walter van Kalken