[Foundation-l] Blanking a Wikipedia, a very bad idea

[Mark]

On 10/4/11 11:20 PM, Jalo wrote:
>> the de facto threshold is whatever allows them to get consensus and have an
>> admin make the
>> necessary changes and not be reverted
>
> You can see the consensus in
> http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Comma_29_e_Wikipedia
>
> I know, it's in italian and google translate sucks, but you can see the
> "opposite" "favorable" templates. Italian wiki community (not only italian
> inhabitants) are compact
>

This is one reason I think non-it.wikipedian action should be fairly 
cautious. Afaik, language communities generally run their wikis' 
affairs, unless they depart so far from the mission that the Wikimedia 
Foundation finds it necessary to overrule them and intervene. It's 
relatively easy to intervene to e.g. desysop a few rogue admins and 
restore control to the community, but if the vast majority of a 
language's editors and admins are making the decision deemed "rogue", 
it's a bit trickier.

It may be that, their point made, the it.wiki community would agree to 
put the site back up in a day or two, or, if they don't want to put it 
back up themselves, perhaps informally agree to have the Wikimedia 
Foundation restore it without opposing that move. Imo that would be the 
best action. I don't think it would be helpful to intervene in a 
heavy-handed manner (certainly no mass-desysopping of an entire 
language's editor base).

-Mark