Wikipedia:Advisory Council on Project Development/Forum

This page is intended for discussion among the members of the Advisory Council. Other editors are cordially invited to contribute comments or suggestions on the talk page.

Format of discussion pages

At the moment, the discussion pages are set up as suggested by Giano and several others; we have four separate pages:

• Advisory Council on Project Development (General description page, mission statement, announcements maybe too)
• Advisory Council talk page (for general comments and inquiries about the Advisory Council)
• Advisory Council forum (for discussion among Advisory Council members)
• Advisory Council forum talk page (for community comments about topics being discussed by the Advisory Council)

Does this seem like a reasonable setup? Would anyone prefer a different one? Does anyone have any other ideas for how we could better organize discussion? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 13:28, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

This seems fine to me, but the Advisory Council page is being used for discussion now too, which I found confusing, thinking I was on this page. لennavecia 14:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I think I've fixed that. --Joopercoopers (talk) 16:59, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I am refactoring Wikipedia:Advisory Council on Project Development to be a summary of all our activities and discussions. I'm hoping that it will be a collaborative effort and a way to organize our activities. Please see my proposal below. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 09:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Creating an agenda

The Arbitration Committee will probably be providing a list of topics that we might discuss fairly soon; but, beyond that, I think we need to put together a broader pool of topics that we can use as an agenda.

I suggest that everyone here comes up with a couple of topics which they would like to see discussed, and we can go from there. Does that seem reasonable?

Should we also post a request that other editors suggest topics (and, if so, where)? Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 13:28, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess other editors can post on the talk page and we can take it from there (?) - as far as topics, you just want everyone to list here then? Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:40, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I guess so, unless someone would prefer a different method of putting together the topic list. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 13:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm sorry to put a spanner in the works, but I don't see how members can present a subject until the council's remit has been clearly defined, which at present I don't think it has. There are subject that I would dearly love to debate, but I suspect they are not what this council has been convened for. So let's have a clear remit of what you and Jimbo (under whose auspices we are told the council sits) want from us. Giano (talk) 14:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

As things stand, we're free to discuss any topic of our choosing, so long as it has some relevance to the improvement of the project. I don't think you need to worry about our remit for any practical purposes; I'm quite certain it would cover anything you might suggest. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 16:04, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think any remit (that is, transfer of legal authority) is in order since we won't be discussing specific cases. Awadewit (talk) 16:23, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

FYI, "remit" means: The topics, scope and depth that a person, committee, is expected to deal with. Giano (talk) 18:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I was using the more specific legal meaning, as I assumed that is what you meant. Apologies for the misunderstanding. Awadewit (talk) 00:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

What Giano said. At least a definition of the starting 'envisioned' framework would give us an idea of where to begin. rootology (C)(T) 16:03, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, the Committee is working on a list of suggested topics as we speak; but it may take some time to put together, and I don't think we need to hold off on discussing anything until we get it, if someone already has some ideas for topics. The intent, broadly speaking, was to explicitly ask about some issues, but let the advisory group choose topics itself beyond that. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 16:10, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Are we primarily concerned with what we ought to start doing in the future, or with improving what we do now? DGG (talk) 16:20, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Both, I think. In practical terms, proposals for incremental changes will probably be easier to develop than ground-up redesigns, but the latter are certainly worth considering as well, even if they require more effort to produce. Kirill ^[talk] [pf] 16:25, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

BLP is the biggest issue facing the project, in my opinion. I'm sure my work cleaning up in this area is why I was invited to join this council, so that's my topic of choice. لennavecia 16:22, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

That would probably be as good a place to start as any. MastCell ^Talk 16:40, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the idea is to brainstorm, right? Come up with a long list of everything that is broken on the wiki. :) Awadewit (talk) 16:43, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Why bother? Everything is wrong, obviously :) Since this is ArbCom's grand idea, I'm mostly interested in its interests and proposed topics; I understand that this all got developed a little sooner than expected, so I'm happy to wait. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 17:32, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

To synthesize what I've read so far: people already have some ideas for specific issues to focus on, but some of us think our first order of business is to create something like a mission statement. Why don't we do both? We can get a draft mission statement (or multiple drafts) going, and create a list of issues that we should focus on. As for the how, I think it might be best if for issues, we do things sort of RFC style by proposing topics with a short description, and those willing to work on that topic now or in the future should sign their names below. Thoughts? Steven Walling (talk) 19:45, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a viable option. لennavecia 00:41, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Who we are

I think the first order of business is to define who we are. Since we have no official powers, and no set agenda, it seems to me that we should say that we are just a group of Wikipedians who have been asked to get together, and because of the nature of how this happened, we are a group of Wikipedians who have the attention of many other Wikipedians. That is reason enough for me to start having discussions.

It is hard to have focused discussion these days. So many people start threads and you get so many opinions expressed that nothing ever seems to happen. Maybe, with this small group, we can actually have focused discussions, and better yet, maybe we can figure out ways to encourage more focused discussions throughout the project.

It has become exceedingly difficult to have community discussions about big issues. I'd like to see our group become facilitators for the community. Facilitators do not make decisions, but they help keep things organized and on topic. We can do that by creating concise pages about issues that we feel are important, summarizing the past history of the issue, help define the issue in ways that stimulate creative solutions, listing criteria for possible solutions, brainstorming, stimulating debate on possible solutions, etc...

Currently, if you want to be involved in debate about an issue, the norm seems to be that you are presented with either a poll about a single proposal with hundreds of !votes and opinions, or a RFC where there are numerous essays and !votes. It takes hours for a concerned Wikipedian to get up to speed on the issue. These processes are moribund from the weight of the community's concern. There is currently, no alternative to this, which means that these big issues fester, and people get discouraged and leave. We need an alternative. The issue pages we create could be the way for the interested Wikipedians to get up to speed on an issue quickly, and participate in an efficient and effective way.

Several months ago, I started writing up a process that could be used to help facilitate community consensus. I realized though that there was no mechanism that would help me get the attention of the community to try and implement a process that was so different from that which already exists. We can be that forum. I hope we will become that forum. I'm looking forward to working with all of you. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 21:01, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I share your concerns regarding scaling issues in general. What's key for me in this is to improve the project's efficiency in decision making, whilst retaining broad democratic input. --Joopercoopers (talk) 21:18, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

An interesting appraisal and idea, I'm not exactly sure how it would work in practice. Let's take an issue, say, FlaggedRevs, where there's been a boatload of discussion and general, if not broad, consensus to movie towards some deployment. How would we approach it? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 22:21, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

ACPD function 1:Redact and present community discussion.? As a starting point for anything we discuss here, we'll need to do that if it hasn't been done already.--Joopercoopers (talk) 22:26, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes, this is where the money is, and I have placed the question again on the RfC page. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:31, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Yes! If we did nothing besides redacting the community's discussion in a centralized place we'd be making a tremendous contribution. The next step after distilling conversation is keeping discussion focused and on track. This has been one the functions of facilitators in the traditional consensus decision making process. The over arching function of the facilitator is to organize the process of making the decision. Often with community discussions at Wikipedia, we have massively big !votes about proposals on topics when there is no consensus about what the problem is that is being solved; when alternative solutions have not been brainstormed or discussed; etc... A good facilitator would never let that happen. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:21, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I agree (nor is there any "authority" that has to devolve from ArbCom to do this, btw). If we could somehow focus discussions on the key issues and organize the discussions, it might even (gasp) encourage more participation in them. Awadewit (talk) 00:21, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Elections

We are already taking some considerable flak for the rather arbitrary and unaccountable way we have been selected. I'd like to see us make an early commitment to hold future elections. I think issues surrounding this debate include 1. How to get a good cross section of the community 2. Voting method 3. When. --Joopercoopers (talk) 21:39, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

I think elections are a terrible idea. A popularity contest isn't a good measure of who's committed to getting down to work on thinking about these issues. Instead, let's just open up this group or a new one like to completely open membership. Steven Walling (talk) 21:58, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

One of the reasons for the formulation of this group, as I understand it, was to provide a space with a high signal-to-noise ratio. Completely open membership does nothing to help that. Elections are also problematic, but the best choice of a bad bunch, can't we discuss how to make them a better choice rather than dismissing them out of hand? --Joopercoopers (talk) 22:22, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Elections would only be necessary if we had any actual power,which we do not. As the community is at liberty to disagree with anything we might suggest, if we ever do suggest anything, there is not really anything to fear. I considered this for a while before accepting, because I have always strongly preferred open groups. But a purely advisory group can another matter--and I think of us as not even primarily that, but primarily a discussion group. And I would suggest something else that would help: the group's existence is limited to one year. That will be time enough to see if this is useful to the community. DGG (talk) 22:42, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Elections seems very premature to me. I'd say that we try and establish a role for such a committee and then earn the community's trust. Once a value for such an organization can be demonstrated, we could consider how members come and go. I really think the signal to noise problem is stifling the project. I don't see any way to get the community to agree on any new process other than to demonstrate how valuable it can be. We should encourage broad community input, but figure out how to do that without weighing down the process. I don't see this committee being about personalities or popularity. I assume that the larger community will also be discussing the issues that we discuss, and we should put the effort into distilling the ideas and concerns that come up. If we can be the filter for the community we fill an important vacuum. So I'd like to put off any discussion about membership until after we've created our identity and demonstrated a process for operating that is effective .-- ☑ SamuelWantman 22:57, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Reading the RfC I think the perception of power is sufficient justification. I like your idea about a one year dissolution though - in the spirit of compromise, how about we maintain as we are for six months, see what we produce, then elect? @Sam - sure, at minimum, I'm just looking for a commitment to accountability --Joopercoopers (talk) 23:01, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Okay, so if we can't agree on elections and others seems to think that opening the group would create chaos, then why don't we either continue with business as usual regardless of ArbCom or community support, or take it off en.wiki to Meta or elsewhere? To be frank, it's not that I entirely disagree with the objections expressed at the RFC. It's that I want to get shit done. I'm glad this particular gathering of smart Wikipedians is interested in the same, and I want to do what we can as a group to think about the important challenges that Wikipedia faces, whiners and critics be damned. So let's think about how we can be productive, and less about how to appease factions who want to run around with torches and pitchforks. Steven Walling (talk) 23:30, 11 July 2009 (UTC)

Well said. I agree completely. لennavecia 00:24, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think elections will have to come whether the group likes it or not - it is cearly and rightly the will of the people. Having said that, should these elections be open to all? If not to whom? It's my understanding that the point of this body is to have a cross section from the community of experienced editors so a way perhaps needs to be devised to ensure candidates meet that criteria. I also think there need to be a realistic ceiling on the number of members (I like odd numbers because then you don't have stalemate. However, firstly we need to get the thing up and running in an orderly way so that prospective candidates can see what it is they are standing to be elected for. I am quite happy to say that I will stand for election in a years time. Which should see some purpose sorted.Giano (talk) 00:03, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I think Giano has a point, but I agree with Steven that we should try and get stuff done before we get muddled into another layer of voting and tallies and crud. If we can't do anything worthwhile, or the amount of energy expended is no less than through normal channels, then we can dissolve it before it turns into an institution. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 00:18, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I have a feeling we were selected in part, with the method we were, because to be completely honest getting anything new off the ground on this site anymore, beyond the most absolutely trivial, is impossible. Everyone digs in their heels for their 1) personal political reasons; 2) philosophical reasons; 3) the 'new thing' would minimize their 'power', so they dig in to stop it. Since we have no apparent direct power over anything but as individual users, elections are largely going to be ceremonial and a sign-off on our ideas. Or something. But yeah, we will need these eventually. Rather than do anything silly or over the top, we should go about it in the context that Giano described above:

1. "elections will have to come whether the group likes it or not - it is cearly and rightly the will of the people"
2. "a realistic ceiling on the number of members"
3. "we need to get the thing up and running in an orderly way so that prospective candidates can see what it is they are standing to be elected for"

My take on this is #1, absolutely. Appointment should be 101% community-driven only. #2, definitely. If we're going to go through with this and see it through, this project should have as mentioned also a very high signal to noise ratio. Just something to think about, maybe have an expansion of up to 3 users per year, use RFB numbers, 0-3 appointed per year. We can cook up term limits as well if people think that's helpful, but since we don't actually decide anything, like the AC, I don't know what good it would do. Just thoughts on that. #3 is the most important now and aside from idle inner thoughts #1 and #2 don't matter yet, and can be came back to. rootology (C)(T) 00:22, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Rather verbosley, that is what I was trying to say, the things needs to up and running before elections etc, and also let's see if it's going to work out and serve any useful purpose. Giano (talk)

An RFB like election to be a member of a discussion group? Pass on that. I have enough shit to deal with in my personal life and better things to do than to relive an RFA where I get slighted for every naughty word I ever said, read complete fabrications about my edit history and get compared to one of the site's more notorious editors. The project is broken. As noted above, it's literally impossible to change anything that isn't completely trivial at this point. Some group is always going to find a reason to oppose anything. This is one of the projects major problems. My sole purpose for even being here at this point is to advocate for the living subject of our shameful biographies. I became entirely fed up with the bullshit of this project many months ago and I'm all about discussing these various issues and trying to come up with ways to fix them, but I'll be damned if I'm going to subject myself to a popularity contest in order to present ideas to a community that would just assume shoot them down because they weren't invited to participate or have some ridiculous fear of a thinktank having power. لennavecia 00:31, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Like I said, just tossing it out as what our priorities are in what I saw as the order (and Giano was more succint as always than I ever am). I wouldn't 'run' myself if it was an RFB thing, especially since all we can do is "advise". But you hit the nail on the head of the fundamental flaw of Wikipedia: Jimmy's 100% open model doesn't scale for governance no matter how some people like to pretend. rootology (C)(T) 00:37, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't run, either. I'm interested in the idea-generation part, not the electioneering part. I don't want to have change my behavior on-wiki so that I can court votes. Awadewit (talk) 00:48, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Same here. I wouldn't run for anything. As the project gets bigger and bigger, I'm enjoying it less and less. That's why I'm here talking. So along those lines, how about making our first topic of discussion Wikipedia dysfunction. --☑ SamuelWantman 01:13, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

←So let's say there's a general opinion to table the whole issue of elections for the foreseeable future? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 01:07, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. Let's get some work done first, at least on defining scope and the issues at hand. Steven Walling (talk) 01:09, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd so say. We all have better things to do than campaign for support from the community to discuss problems amongst ourselves and present ideas for improvement to them. لennavecia 01:11, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 01:13, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

This is self defeating. As the announcement says:

convening an advisory group with members invited from across the breadth of Wikipedia.

If you want people from other communities to advise arbcom, going election path is silly, as most useful people won't bother then (since enwiki's elections are often a drama source and a tiring event). And usually advisors in any organizations aren't elected (think for example: Wikimedia's advisory board, those aren't elected) and that's precisely because what's needed it's the expertise opinions and not the popularity.

This whole election thing is bad since it self defeats the purpose of having diverse views. It closes the door and makes this to become closed withhin the same enwiki's bubble: only enwiki people will know about it, participate, candidate and get elected) and so the whole idea of an advisory group gets shortcomed getting people with the same "wikicultural mindset".

The community elects the arbcom members, but if the community elects who can the arbcom ask for advice, then it's making things more closed, not open (as paradoxical that may sound).

So, in short: advisors shouldn't be elected because they're there to say what needs to be said, not what arbcom/community wants to be said (which would be the ouctome of elections in the long term). -- m:drini 15:47, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Elections - motion

I know we've not heard from everyone on this yet, but I put forward the compromise suggested above, so that we might move on with other things. We've got some that think we need elections, others that don't and some that won't stand if we do. If we commit to elections in a year, those that won't stand have a year here to make a difference. For those who might stand, our success or failure will be measured by whether we've had anything adopted by the community.

1) Elections to the council will be held on 1st August 2010. The intent, nature and details of the elections will be decided prior to July 2010.

Support

1. proposed--Joopercoopers (talk) 02:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
2. Support This is a fundamental basis of the ACPD, it needs to be 100% established that the community will have the opportunity to select the advisers. However, they must be editors of long standing who have shown a personall commitment to the project and representative of all aspects of the community. Giano (talk) 11:20, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Oppose

1. I strongly oppose elections as that is precisely one of the things that are broken on enwiki: anything has to be voted, and we were called because of our experience not to serve a community position but to advise. I have no intentions of going htrough the sillyness of an election in order to give advice, so should it happen, you'd simply not count on me. I no longer consider myself part of the enwiki community (while I still form part of the large wm communty), and that's why I accepted: I think I can give a non polluted external neutral point of view on any issue. See also my argument in the section above the motion -- m:drini 15:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
2. Since this council doesn't have any formal authority, elections aren't necessary. Cla68 (talk) 23:59, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Abstain

• Abstain for now, as I don't think it's important to figure out an election scheme if we're not sure it's going to work. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:42, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

comment

I'd also like to suggest we dispense as much as possible with this archaic voting mechanism per Arbcom for absolutely every decision, contested or not. Preferable would be to create project pages we all edit. If there's disagreement on those pages, we then come to the talk page to vote if and when necessary. --Joopercoopers (talk) 02:39, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Please! no voting. I'd suggest instead a different process. First we discuss, then when it looks like things are coming together someone says "This looks like we are reaching consensus, are there any concerns that have not been addressed". We then discuss the concerns. At some point, someone calls for consensus by saying "I'd like to call for consensus" and we sign below that without comment if we are in agreement. If someone does fully agree they can say "declare reservations", "stand asside" or "block" per normal concensus decision making proceedures. We are a small enough group that we can use standard concensus decision making techniques. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 03:53, 12 July 2009 (UTC)
• Also, we should move s l o w l y ! We should wait a while before trying to decide anything. I think there are members of this council that haven't even been here yet! -- ☑ SamuelWantman 03:56, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Yes, there are. It would be nice if this group could operate outside of wikitime to allow everyone time to participate and to think slowly and carefully. Awadewit (talk) 05:26, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Hello to all. As one of those who has not been on wikitime (and, indeed, hardly on wiki) for a while, for various reasons, mostly work and travel, I echo the plea to go slowly. Meanwhile, I'm also wary of elections in that any elected body will at some point (and quite logically) want power to go with its democratic mandate. I prefer to think of this as a purely advisory body, whose advice can be rejected with complete freedom. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 04:01, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

the view others take of us

It is quite obvious from the RfC that the view others take of us -- and good people too, many of whom I respect enormously -- is different from the way we see it. Based on the discussion above, most of us see our role as trying if the process of a discussion in a moderately small varied group not focused of specific issues produces some ideas that the community might want to consider, or at least clarifies some issues. There is a good deal of suspicion expressed of anything from arb com. Perhaps we can do it best free completely of their sponsorship, and I wonder if the proposal of doing it at meta might make some sense. At this point, considering what has been said, we do absolutely have to work in public. I do not see arb com's role in this as wrong, though clearly they misjudged how to suggest it. When there's a vacuum and action is needed, somebody has to start things going. I unfortunately wonder if the prejudice against anything they suggest will lead people to discard even their good ideas. My view has always been that we should take good ideas from wherever they're offered. DGG (talk) 06:06, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I unfortunately wonder if the prejudice against anything [ArbCom] suggest will lead people to discard even their good ideas. I think that's clear. And I absolutely agree with your last sentence. لennavecia 06:40, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Bluntly, I'm not sure if any sort of binding consensus will come out of the RfC, and I fully intend on ignoring it, really. It was hastily put up by people with a bone to pick (not to say some of the people opposed don't have good reasons), and given the division on self-electing groups anyway I'd hardly say there's a mandate to shut it down. We can shed the Arbcom involvement, if we must, but that would be largely symbolic if we're still operating in the same capacity. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 12:15, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Broadly I agree with you, I don't personally see a problem with a couple of Arbs being aboard, at least, it ensures that the opinions expressed are noted and taken back. However, the chief grouse seems to be it was a "fait accompli", which is complete tosh as here we are trying to establish the rudiments in a very public forum. So, here we are, here we sit, ignore hell breaking loose, and let's get on with what we are here for, advise the arbcom. My advice to the Arbcom is that they recall their fallen comrades, get a grip and we all start work. We are here because we were asked by the Arbcom - a body elected to make decisions - they made one. Giano (talk) 13:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

• Who knew it would take a unilateral act of ArbCom to bring us together, G. :) On one hand, I do want to get crackin', but I figure that since some members of our august body have not made it this way and the RfC dust is still in the air, we take our sweet time (at least until everyone can get here and chime in, and the RfC fallout settles) and sit tight for a bit. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 14:12, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

Mmmm. I am not a person given to waitng patiently, or waiting for dust to settle. However, I suppose a brief pause for the other members to catch up would do no harm, so long as it is brief - where are they anyway? Giano (talk) 18:50, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I assume doing more productive, nonwiki things? Summer is somewhat of a bad time to do these things, for us in the northern hemisphere. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 21:01, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm happy to wait. Aren't we waiting for Arbcom to give us a brief? --Joopercoopers (talk) 21:09, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I suppose so; I am begining to feel we have been dumped here and abandoned. In fact, I'm starting to feel like a lemon in a martini lacking any gin. Giano (talk) 22:49, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

←I agree about sitting tight until the RFC has cooled down. But the big question in my mind is: With the resignations, does ArbCom even want the group anymore? I haven't heard a real statement on the matter. Steven Walling (talk) 23:00, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

No matter what the ArbCom says, I hope we can work and see what we can come up with. In fact, we might be better off if we just declare our independence, say that we have nothing whatsoever to do with ArbCom, and declare our allegiance to the community at large. A think tank working on Wikipedia's major systemic problems is urgently needed. Since we are not claiming that we have any authority or power, why cant' we just proceed as we would like without any official sanction? If twenty or so well meaning editors can come together and come up some good ideas, perhaps the same group can work to win the hearts and minds of the community to implement their suggestions. I also think that we should think about how this can be a productive forum for the entire community by creating new mechanisms for handling major issues. Once we do that, we could remove the "by invitation" restriction. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 23:15, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

I'd like to cut loose too, but fear that the only thing between this council as currently conceived and a successful MfD, is the supposed legitimacy from Jimbo. --Joopercoopers (talk) 23:30, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

This thing started on a weekend, and I usually don't edit on a weekend, which in this case is a good thing because it helped keep me from being sucked into the bickering going on on other pages about this council. Well, we're here, so we might as well get started. I propose that each of us a posts a short lists of topics we would like to discuss, then we can select several topics which are common to more than one person and divide the page up into sections to discuss each, or else create sub-pages for each. How does that sound? Cla68 (talk) 00:04, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Someone just let me know that ArbCom may provide us a list of topics to start with. That's fine with me. Cla68 (talk) 00:10, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

We are perfectly capable of creating our own list, ArbCom can give us their list and I think we should take suggestions from the community and as well (I'll add a section on the talk page). I'd like to start with:

• an open and structured policy development forum to centralize and organize the discussion of contentious and difficult issues. Or to frame this more broadly, "Wikipedia problem solving dysfunction".

Perhaps that is all we really need to do. Once we create the forum to replace ourselves, we can dissolve. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 00:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

All? We'll have this done by tomorrow. :) I like this idea as I see this as a way to enable the community to make decisions that it currently is hamstrung from doing right now by models that don't work. Awadewit (talk) 00:33, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

If you mean a discussion about proposing the creation of a policy-oversight process or committee to oversee Wikipedia policy maintenance, development, improvement, and disputes, that was going to be one of the topics on my short list also. Cla68 (talk) 00:37, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

To be more abstract then the above, I assume what you're referring to Sam is contentious issues where it is difficult to arrive at a "consensus" despite repeated polls, RfCs, et al, and what to do then? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 00:51, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

With that subject proposal and considering much of the discussion here, I'd like to remind people that we're not limited to dealing with governance issues. In my mind, it might be easier for us to tackle something else — ideally something content-related — first, rather than dive in to trying to fix policy creation or other systemic social problems. Not to say that I'm trying to redirect attention right now, it's just something to keep in mind. Whenever we do cover such topics, then I'd like to see try and first just synthesize and describe the problems at hand in a cogent way, rather than rush in to developing solutions. Steven Walling (talk) 00:57, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

You're absolutely right, we need to identify and define the problems first before proposing solutions. Here's some issues that I see:

• No orderly process for managing, interpreting, and changing policy.
• No institutionalized support and guidance for Wikipedia's admin corps.
• Please add more. Cla68 (talk) 01:01, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

(outdent)Yes, yes yes. I do mean "contentious issues where it is difficult to arrive at a "consensus" despite repeated polls, RfCs, et al, and what to do then?" I fully agree that we need to analyze and describe problems before trying to solve them. I tried to frame this as broadly as I could by saying "Wikipedia problem solving dysfunction". Does anyone have a better way to say this? I would like us to take the path of identifying problems, analyzing them, defining them, creating criteria to be met, and brainstorming possible solutions before we get around to picking solutions and implementing them.☑ SamuelWantman 01:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I think we probably all know how to do this, but just in case, here's a formal guide on how to define a problem. Cla68 (talk) 01:29, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Well call me stupid, that's actually a helpful link I'll have to keep around :) @Sam I don't think it was unnecessarily clear, I was just double-checking. "Problems with forming consensus" could be another roundabout way of describing it. Anyhow, if we're on that vein, here's the issues as I see them:

• Consensus is rather murky, even in its description
• Because it relies on strength of arguments rather than pure votes, it makes it hard to quantify
• It is easy to make consensus what any given editor wants it to be
• Consensus can too easily be the result of insular groups (a recent example in my mind is a wikiproject decided that what FAC regulars consider unreliable sources to be reliable enough for them.)
• Since it's hard to 'declare' consensus in contentious issues, momentum slows and rather than addressing the problem, resources are allocated to addressing consensus. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 02:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

One thing about being in arbcom is logitudinal exposure to some of wikipedia's trouble areas - I guess, where the 'pedia doesn't "work". However, I have more hope now in some areas - eg. Nationalist disputes I feel are workable as long as the committee directs the community to find a well-circumscribed solution in naming (but I might be prematurely optimisitic in this). Ditto fiction notability - although everyone squabbles, I get the feeling there is a boundary of notability and detail where it is not too hard to tell what will be kept or deleted at AfD.

Secondary to Cla68 above, I hadn't really given much thought to it but subtle policy changing over time does worry me, as it can be insidious and we have alot of policies. I know it concerned Kirill to the point he wrote a proposal last year too. I will flick up a link in a minute unless someone beats me to it. So, yes I agree policies need some form of centralised monitoring and/or vetting. I also agree in some form of support for admin corps, as I can see a need for upskilling in areas such as dealing with frustrated editors and defusing rather than ramping up emotion. BLP is a concern as the legal implications need to be adequately addressed, and concerns confirmed or fears allayed. Other areas will come up, but this is to get the ball rolling. Casliber (talk · contribs) 03:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Another possible topic is the enforcement of WP:NFCC, although I hope to draft a solid point-counterpoint RfC to address that and since there's never really been an attempt to cast a wide net, I'm not sure it's to the level of "broken consensus"... I'll get back to you guys though :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 03:29, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I think the original fuzzily-stated terms of reference (I'm sure I'm not the only one who asked a bunch of questions before agreeing to join) may have provoked the community's distrust. It's unfortunate that Arbcom felt compelled to make a statement about the Council ahead of when it wished to and therefore, IMHO, before a statement could be written in a manner that didn't leave room for this mistrust. Only way to even try to allay it is to start doing something, really. --Dweller (talk) 11:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Problem statements

I'll lead off with a problem statement. If no one thinks this is the correct thread to start at this point, then ignore it and continue with other discussions. Otherwise, please feel free to post your own problem statements:

1. Policies: I think there is a problem with policies in general because I have witnessed editors arguing over vague policies, including me. I have also seen editors trying to alter policies to give them an advantage in content disputes and have seen what appears to be groups of editors involved with controlling policy pages to keep "their" version intact, while ignoring the policy page's talk page discussion or consensus. Often, policy changes seem to occur just because one small group of editors is more persistent than others. These policy issues are occurring throughout Wikipedia, because policy governs everything we do. I think there are several reasons that it is occuring: POV-pushing agendas, status-quo adherents, and honest differences of opinion. I think that policy administration is a problem that should be addressed. Cla68 (talk) 10:31, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
2. Addition and retention of users Recently, it has become difficult to add and retain new users to Wikipedia (see Wikipedia:WikipediaWeekly/Episode73 for the data). Moreover, our current users are more divided between one-off users and hardcore users with fewer and fewer occasional editors. Without a way to increase the number of editors and particularly those who edit occasionally, the community will eventually collapse as more and more responsibility falls on fewer and fewer people with no replacements in sight. Awadewit (talk) 12:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
3. Democracy vs. management. We are not a democracy, we are not a bureaucracy, we are not a micro nation, apparently there's many things we're not, but few people can tell you what we are. Jimbo is fond of talking about 'constitutions', 'monarchies' etc. but often acts in ways consistent more with management than democratic structures. We have the semblances of some democratic structures, but lack any kind of shared vision and the resultant fudge is the source of considerable confusion and conflict. What part might Jimbo play in all of this and should his role be replaced over time? As an open source project to build an encyclopaedia founded on the principle of the 'wisdom of the crowds', what is the most effective structure to achieve our aims? --Joopercoopers (talk) 10:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
4. Decision making in a large community Consensus vs. !vote, mandate democracy, accountability, representation, RFA etc. etc. I'll kick this off by asserting a few premises for discussion - "WPs current decision making mechanisms are flawed" 1. They are inefficient, requiring undue amounts of time and space. 2. They are ineffective when dealing with complex issues and mitigate too much towards preserving the status quo. 3. With 155,000 odd active participants, decisions made by a small fraction of that number are not democratic. 4. "Consensus" as a model for large scale participatory discussions does not work.--Joopercoopers (talk) 11:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
5. BLP. The project doesn't have the resources to monitor or maintain all of the biographies of living people. This not only serves as a potentially huge legal risk for the Foundation, but we also have a moral obligation to protect the living subjects of our articles. The problem is years old and continuously growing. لennavecia 15:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
6. Sources, edit wars, undue weight. Do our current policies and/or their implementation, make it difficult to assert mainstream positions in articles? Can content disputes be handled better? How robust is our neutral point of view? --Joopercoopers (talk) 11:20, 13 July 2009 (UTC)
7. Functionary issues re. probity and appearance Term lengths, holding other positions, retention of privileges after resignation or end of terms, public perception, impeachment mechanisms. --Joopercoopers (talk) 13:08, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Discussion

I'll agree with point 1. And wikilawyers are adept at making the most of problematic wording. IAR used to be a way this problem was avoided, but unsurprisingly in retrospect, IAR has come to be treated with great suspicion. I think that the groups that habitually monitor policy pages they are familiar with may have become too close to them and it may be a useful exercise for us to take a look at a policy at a time, with a fresh perspective. I'd start with the deletion policy, because it's something that causes a lot of problems, especially with new editors, whom we should encourage. I think that our role should be to hammer out some problems and potential solutions and then float them at the VP, flagged at CENT and relevant talk pages for the community to assess and take forward as they please. This would fit the non-decision making role this Council was sold to me on, and could allay community concerns about it. I have no interest in being part of a group of undemocratically appointed superusers, but would be very interested in working with a small but diverse group of experienced users to bring forward ideas for community assessment. (If we get good at it, the ultimate project would probably be to find ideas to "fix" the unbroken <ahem>) --Dweller (talk) 10:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Should we create an Agenda subpage for all of this? --Joopercoopers (talk) 11:02, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good. I think a liberal use of subpages to help keep discussions organized would be helpful. Cla68 (talk) 11:03, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

May be worth not trying to be too ambitious - rather than an agenda, perhaps a list of potential first projects, from which we should select one, suck it and see. I think we'll learn a lot from doing the task, which should inform how we move on, or tell us that the idea is a busted flush. --Dweller (talk) 11:11, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds like a good idea to me. Cla68 (talk) 11:13, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Should it be a subpage of this one (/Forum/Agenda), or just off the main page? --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 12:22, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I think it's important the community also get a linked space to comment on our discussions. To do this is I suggest we might use the following format.

1. Wikipedia:Advisory Council on Project Development/Foo Foo being the particular issue we're looking at - might include sections as described in Cla68s link ie. Defining the problem, causes, evidence (I'm very keen on getting empirical evidence into this process - Awadewit's link is excellent btw, thanks.]
2. Wikipedia talk:Advisory Council on Project Development/Foo Talk page for our discussions of the issue.
3. Wikipedia Advisory Council on Project Development/Foo/Community development Parallel project page edited by the community.
4. Wikipedia talk:Advisory Council on Project Development/Foo/Community discussions Talk page for community discussions of our work @No.1 and their own at No.3

My hope is threefold. 1. We benefit from the good community voice and ideas. 2. The community gets input 3. We can still have fairly streamlined discussions. We might also think about using something like User:Lar's tabbed user page to organise that.--Joopercoopers (talk) 13:00, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

@Dweller - looking at the list above, there's clearly some over-arching 'meta' issues and other more specific detail issues. I think you are right, we should pick up some of the smaller ones first as baby steps. As time goes on though, I'd like us to try and investigate problems facing the project in the medium and long term. --Joopercoopers (talk) 13:06, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Based on my opinions of the list, the "smaller" ones appear to be lower-level content (basically everything save BLPs, I know Jen is interested in tackling that) and things such as user participation. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 15:54, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

• I think it's a good idea to start discussing one issue at a time. Let's see how it goes. I'm not too concerned about the fuss that has arisen about the very existence of this group. In the end, the value of any such body is only justified if it can prove some worth, by generating some ideas and sustained reflections on issues that many have identified as concerns. I should say that in general I'm fairly laissez faire. I concur with the last line of a review I just read of Andrew Lih's The Wikipedia Revolution: "truly, for all its flaws, Wikipedia is a wonderful thing" (David Runciman, "Like Boiling a Frog," London Review of Books 31.10 [28 May 2009]: 16). There is lots of talk about this or that being broken on Wikipedia, but I'm not always convinced. I am, however, happy to be convinced otherwise. --jbmurray (talk • contribs) 03:08, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Data gathering and analysis

I was impressed by Pixelface's work on analysing the development of policies of notability - see User:Pixelface/Timeline of notability guidelines and User:Pixelface/Unique editors of policies and guidelines. There are more links on his userpage. I wonder whether plotting the development of other guidelines is helpful in this regard - eg socking policies, civility policies etc. Subpages could have a temporal 'map' on them plotting out timelines. Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:44, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Introductions

Unfortunately I was offline this weekend and missed all the fuss. Rather than spending today trying to read all the reaction; I would like to take a different approach. I think it would help everyone see the shape of things if we all took the time to introduce ourselves, explain our thoughts on community governance, and introduce one topic that we think would be suitable for group discussion.

Birgitte SB

I have been around since 2006 and have seldom been active in any high profile issues on en.WP. I have take a more vocal role on the foundation-l mailing list and en.WS, where I am a b'crat. Although I expect few people here to be familiar with me from foundation-l, I have a long advocacy there for the self-governance of the wikis. I think it is important that each wiki has the ability to approach our common goals as the community sees fit, which may end up being very different from how another wiki does things. This view is opposed to the view that dozens of policies and procedures should kept at Meta and merely translated to each wiki. I think the key to success for the wikis is this sort of experimentation where each wiki is trying the solution that they strongly believe in rather than merely enforcing one that that handed to them. As with any sort of experiment, there are always failures but wikis seem to naturally abandon those things which don't work or else mold them into something more practical. This group I see as such an experiment if anything useful comes out of it will likely remold itself around the sort of things it succeeds at and abandon the kind of inquiries that yield nothing useful. I imagine the people involved by the same token, will stick around if they are useful and fade away if they are not. I don't expect this group will directly change anything, but I hope that it may offer a better focus than discussions might have elsewhere and that such focused attention might lead to changes.

As I think there is little attention given to problems that both long-term and do not revolve around editors, the topic I wish to bring forward is both. Below is a table that compares problematically tagged article by their categories from August of 2007, the last time Dragons Flight, with current numbers. Some of these problems revolve around core principles, other mere style. Some are exactly what they claim, others tend attract more important problems than stated (i.e. {{cleanup}} is often put on cut-and-paste copyvios). Besides the efforts of the Stub-sorting project, none of these categories that were selected as worth watching two years ago have found an effective solution by self-selected volunteers. Is there anything that can be done to motivate editors to make some headway on any of these backlog? Is there something that can be done to direct attention to articles that have "priority" problems? And what problem should be considered "priority"? The math was done by hand and may contain errorsBirgitteSB 17:12, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Category	8-07	7-09	% Change
All pages needing cleanup	26,369	57,163	+112%
Uncategorized pages	10,122	16,997	+40%
All pages needing to be wikified	12,708	17,852	+40%
Stubs	2,018	4	-100%
Articles to be merged	305	14,295	+4,587%
Wikipedia articles needing factual verification	32	2,536	+7,825%
All articles with unsourced statements	75,599	151,075	+100%
All articles lacking sources & All unreferenced BLPs combined	83,512	203,567	+144%
All orphaned articles	25,976	140,656	+441%
Articles to be split	636	709	+12%
All articles needing copy edit	2,219	7,695	+71%
Articles lacking in-text citations	1,093	19,587	+1,692
Wikipedia articles needing style editing	9,276	20,284	+119%
Wikipedia articles in need of updating	1,270	3,487	+175%
Wikipedia articles needing context	4,660	6,691	+44%
Articles that may contain original research	3,611	9,716	+169%
NPOV disputes	5,640	9,419	+67%
Accuracy disputes	2,091	2,547	+22%

Wikivoices recording on group

Please consider joining the Wikivoices recording tomorrow, which will be discussing this group. As of now, I will be the only one of us there (and I have to be late). Thanks. Awadewit (talk) 19:07, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately I won't be around online at that time either, I hope some others can do it :) --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 19:47, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Sadly, people have enough of a problem understanding my wiki-chat, if they heard my voice and accent in real life - they would realise that I can barely speak the language in an intelligible way. Giano (talk) 20:34, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, then maybe the listeners would think that we're incomprehensible anyhow, and will back off :P --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 21:32, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

Who can get the Flagged Revs coding done?

So we're here to brainstorm, let's try a real life scenario: see here. Apparently some additional coding work needs to be done to facilitate the activation of the approved Flagged Revisions process. What can we do or suggest to get that done? rootology (C)(T) 21:28, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't have the technical expertise to provide much assistance with this, but if any grunt-level work is necessary, please let me know what I can do. Cla68 (talk) 23:09, 13 July 2009 (UTC)

As I recall, the "deadline" given was Wikimania, so they have a month and change to effect, well, changes. But I'm not sure what we can do about it. --Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs ^(talk) 00:41, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I've been told this is being worked on and is supposed to roll out in August. لennavecia 01:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Who is working on this? Can we get a report? --Joopercoopers (talk) 10:34, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I've sent an email requesting updated info. Lara 18:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

• You have to find a developer that you know personally and convince them put some more time into it. The one on one approach is the only thing that is reliably successful. More long-term solutions are a) learn to write code or b) organize a chapter to hire a developer to do what you think most important. And please, please do not write to foundation-l about it again. en.WP has a long record of having bugs resolved at speed beyond any other wiki except maybe de.WP, which has hired dedicated developers. There is not much sympathy for the situation with non-en.WP people there, where everyone can name bugs that are years old. If you must have updates and information, ask the devs on IRC. They are always there and it is less likely to spark a derisive comments about en.WP than on the mailing lists.BirgitteSB 13:37, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Birgitte, I'm afraid you might have to forgive my utter ignorance and get me up to speed here - what is all that about? I've paid little attention to flagged revisions. My understanding is this. 1. Flagged revisions were successfully tried on the german wikipedia. 2. Attempts at getting consensus to implement them on EN failed and Jimbo intervened to force them through. 3. We're still waiting for that to happen because the form the community did like wasn't implementable without a software change. 4. They're seen as an important safeguard in the BLP debate.

If they're already implemented on DE is that a hack then, rather than a change to the mediawiki software? Do we need someone to do the hack here? (Now read Wikipedia:Flagged revisions, it's an extension). Isn't Brion Vibber our lead developer? Is there no formal 'list' of changes required to the software that the development team are working through? Why the resistance to simply asking questions of developers?

I seem to have inadvertently touched a massive nerve here and I'm baffled. --Joopercoopers (talk) 14:17, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

By all means ask the developers directly. I don't mean to say I object to you asking brion, but your asking him is unlikely to actually change the amount of time he can dedicate to the issue. At least that has always been my experience with past issues. If you can find a volunteer developer that that someone knows more personally, and I mean personally in loose internet terms, and convince them to look into the issue and see if they can take on some of the work; you are better likely to speed things along. This is what has worked for me. I doubt there is any formal list of changes, but I do not know. I am afraid I came off differently than intended. I am not upset or anything.BirgitteSB 17:23, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

BTW my response was written in answer to What can we do or suggest to get that done? rather than a direct reply to you. If that is part of your confusion. That is why a started it at a bullet point.BirgitteSB 18:25, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I spoke to Sue Gardner yesterday, and she assured me that Wikimania is still the goal. There are a number of reasons why throwing more people at a programming issue doesn't always help, so what I propose is that we trust Brion's timeline and leave them all alone until Wikimania. I'd say we should even give them a few weeks after that if there is some glitch. And then we start raising hell (but gently, respectfully) if it's not rolled out 4 weeks past Wikimania. I've been pushing for this and waiting for this for years now, I suppose a few more weeks won't kill us. :-) --Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:27, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

A proposal on how to proceed

May I suggest that we create and demonstrate a workable forum for having community discussions? I find it interesting that while Wikipedia has been able to collaboratively create almost three million articles, with many of very high quality, it is very difficult to have a focused community discussion. I don't think that talk pages are very effective tools for keeping discussions focused. What is needed, is a collectively written page about each issue that outlines the issue's history and documents -- concisely -- the work that is being done; an analysis and definition of the problem; community concerns, possible solutions, etc.

As it is now, the more important the issue, the more people will become involved. The more people that become involved, the longer the opinion statements and rebuttals. The longer the verbiage gets, the less likely it will be read by anyone. So we end up with hundreds of people talking and nobody listening. Many people (myself included) just stay away. Either they find the rancor distasteful, or just don't have the time and energy to read through everything to understand what is going on. I find it very difficult to have meaningful conversations with more than one other person on a talk page. I don't know how to have a conversation with several hundred.

Many people have commented that consensus is not working. I have a little bit of training in formal consensus decision making and have seen it at work in several institutions. Wikipedia, has not practiced consensus decision making as I have known it. What is missing is facilitation. So I think that we should start a new process of facilitating the work on resolving issues.

As facilitators, we would collect, summarize, refactor, edit and redact all the conversation about an issue so that any Wikipedian could quickly see where we have come from, where we are at and where we are going with any issue. An "issue page" can be created for every issue. Everyone in the larger Wikipedia community could participate, and eventually we could create a mechanism to open up the entire process. Since our current culture does not embraces using facilitation for solving issues, it will take some effort on our part to get it going.

I suggest that we replicate the rules for creating articles as a starting guide for creating issue pages. They would be created with a neutral POV, be cited with links to discussions, essays, conflicts, etc... They would NOT be the place to have discussions, polls or requests for comments. Wikis are wonderful tools for collaboration.

I notice that work has already begun on writing Wikipedia:Advisory Council on Project Development. If there is no objection, I will try to implement what I am talking about on that page. The issue I will be using as an example is the organization of our council. What I hope, is that anything of value, that comes from the discussion on this page or elsewhere, be concisely summarized on that page and linked. Rather than have long conversations here, we can collectively write that page. -- ☑ SamuelWantman 07:40, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Sounds good to me. I used to work as an IT project manager and had to use facilitation skills to help the different participants and stakeholders make agreements in order to get the project moving, so I understand what you're saying. Cla68 (talk) 07:53, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Complete agreement from me too. Giano (talk) 11:30, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Agreed. --Joopercoopers (talk) 11:35, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

Add my support. Lara 18:29, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

This looks very promising.BirgitteSB 18:32, 14 July 2009 (UTC)