[Wikipedia-l] about agendas

Mon Nov 11 20:08:03 UTC 2002

Hello,

I want to speak of agendas in two senses: first of the agendas some people
try to impose upon wikipedia and second of an agenda as a suggestion for
better organization of this mailinglist.

First: concerning trolls, obstructive users and so on:
I see Wikipedia first of all as a scientific project with the remarkable
feature that not only scientists are working at it but also "normal"
people. But that doesn't mean that we should give up the standards of
scientific research. Wikipedia is big and attractive enough - we don't
need contributors who can't behave according to the rules set in
Wikiquette and NPOV. More than more restrictive and/or
effective banning rules we need rules for ourselves: 
- Don't give people seeking attention the desired attention (this for
the Anti-American page)
- Warn politely and _ignore_!
- Ban if people violate warnings and continue with their behaviour.
- Don't attack a sysop because of a quick ban if the banned person
contributed nothing remarkably to wikipedia other than quarrels.

Last week I read in another enclycopedia (about theory of science) -
ethics of science, Mertons four norms I think we should adopt:
- the quality of research should not be judged by social characteristics
of the researcher (like race, religion...) 
- results of research should be open and free, not secret ;-) 
- the working attitude of the scientific community should be organized
scepticism. Each source or belief should be critically examined.
- the researcher should have no interest in the outcomes of his research.

These are ideal norms (like our NPOV), but I think people whose sole
interest is to "prove" something (that USA are evil, that "Freiwirtschaft"
will solve all economical problems, that Karl the Great didn't exist at
all, that the Beatles were the greatest rockband ever) have no place in
Wikipedia. 

==============

Second: discussion here often seems to be unproductive. A subject is 
discussed, several ideas are presented and nothing is done in the end
until the same subject comes up a little bit later again.
What I propose is some sort of agenda, maybe with a corresponding page at
Meta wikipedia. Items can be put there and removed when they are solved
for the moment. I'd also like to see f.e. Erik's software patches put
there. It's often difficult to distinguish between "just an idea" and an
"I'll do it if nobody refuses" up to an "I just implemented it, it's
now already on the server."

It easier to solve a clearly defined problem than to keep track of
differing opinions presented in no clear order.

An example agenda for actual issues (I added some new which I consider as
necessary) 
* Solution for dealing with uncooperative users needed.
* the question of www.wikipedia.org
* technical: identifying and removing bottlenecks in the software, tuning
the database, implement more intelligent caching/ switching to Postgres
(I fear that the constant slowliness of the software may drive more 
(especially new!) contributors away than Lir & Co. will ever do)
* adjusting the focus of the mailinglists: creation of enwiki-l. 
(Problems with users of the English wikipedia are of absolutely no interest
for us international people who have to subscribe to wikipedia-l because
people forget to inform the international community of important
decisions.)
* designing an emergency plan for an attack of automatized vandalism by
bots which can happen any time!
* decide on a decision making process.
This project has become too big for the fuzzy decision making process used
till now.
* getting a clear policy for unclear copyright issues

Discussions are great, often necessary but in the end we should solve the
problems! How to organize this is another question... I imagine groups of
people willing to solve a problem, discussing it, work out possible and
clear defined solutions and present this as a result to the whole
community who should decide then upon which solution is to be taken
(without big discussion - for this they should have joined the working
group) 
proposed steps:
* put an item on the agenda (maybe also assign a priority)
* form a working group of all people interested in and work out solutions.
* present the solutions (with pro and contra arguments) to the community
* let the community decide
* implement the solution
* remove item from the agenda

This procedere requires a lot of discipline but discipline is something we
all have in abundance, don't we? ;-)

Since Ed mentioned my name as one of the frustrated contributors who might
be driven away by Lir & Co, one clarification: I will never leave because
of some trolls, but if most discussions here continue to go in circles 
without other results than the status quo I will restrict my activities to
my field of expertise in the German wikipedia, unsubscribe all
mailinglists other than the German and give up the German embassy. 

I really like politics but if this here remains a debating club I better
go to write articles.

greetings,
elian
-- 
heidegger, n. A ponderous device for boring through thick layers of
substance. "It's buried so deep we'll have to use a heidegger."  