[Wikipedia-l] Re: wikispecies

[Anthere]

Daniel Mayer a écrit:
> --- Anthere <anthere9 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> 
>>...
>>If wikispecies is not set up, it may be that the wiki is set up 
>>somewhere else and it may be that part of its information is included in 
>>wikipedia from that free ressource.
> 
> 
> Nobody I know of is saying that we should not have it Anthere. I, for example,
> want a general solution by having this on the Commons. 
> 
> Wikispecies would then be a Wikimedia Commons data project; along with Wikiwar,
> Wikichemistry, and anything else that would benefit from Commons technology. 

It is true that no one has said we should not have it Mav. But I think 
it is also true that if those very willing to have a wikispecies project 
*really* want to have a wikispecies project and it does not happen, 
those are not bound to join wikimedia, but might just move their 
business another place.
I do not think they would have done this, but this is also part of the 
discussion.
The internet is very free and very large. There is room for free-content 
wikis in other places. I sure prefer that wikispecies is part of us all 
:-) That will make it quite easier to fully integrate wikipedia and 
wikispecies together, so that wikispecies is a specialized database and 
wikipedia the generalist encyclopedia.


> I still strongly feel the board way overstepped its authority by authorizing
> this when there was far from a consensus to proceed. 


I noticed something today, which I may provide all of you for further 
thoughts.

When there is a decision to take (such as the decision of hiring/paying 
someone to do a critical job, such as the administrator of domain 
names), one may read "Jimbo should handpick someone he trusts explicitely".

When a decision was taken (such as the decision of starting a new 
wikimedia project) and someone does not like it, one my hear "the board 
has overstepped his mandate and authority".

I think that perhaps the community is not clear on what the board role 
should be.

Angela and I are meant to represent you all, and frankly this is not 
easy when "you" (collectively) do not agree. The three of us acted in 
good faith, aware that this decision would cause you sadness, but with 
the feeling that there was rough consensus and that your concerns would 
be adressed with some specific guidelines and software improvement. In 
particular, we insisted that duplication of effort should be avoided and 
both projects should be heavily interconnected, and that this would have 
to be a very important point in the development of wikispecies.
We also think that the content will be presented in such a way that it 
will first be a reference work, and as such will have slightly different 
software requirements from Wikipedia.

It is entirely possible that we missed some of your concerns, however we 
tried to take the best decision possible. I think that the opposite 
decision would have cause much unhappiness to other people as well.


> The concerns should have be addressed first in order *try* to find a mutually
> acceptable solution. I did not see a good effort to do that. 
> 
> Leadership by fiat is no leadership at all. 
> 
> -- mav

I find that comment offensive Mav, but I will consider that you say it 
only because very very much unhappy. I do think that Angela and I have 
really tried in the past trimester not to take any decisions by fiat, 
but to ask and listen in length to opinions voiced. I know not for 
Angela, but I think just asking and listening to what people think is 
what is taking me most of my active time. I do think we really tried 
hard to be careful and really tried to avoid practicing dictatorship, to 
the point of sometimes taking some decisions which we think are not the 
best, only because they are the most supported ones.
However, some decisions will always lead some people to be unhappy and 
we can not avoid this. The best we can propose is to go again through 
all your concerns and try to see how best to alleviate them.