Top 10 Wikipedias

[Filip Maljkovic]

Forwarding on behalf of Waldir.

Cheers,
Filip

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[Filip Maljkovic]

Filip Maljkovic wrote:
> Forwarding on behalf of Waldir.
>
> Cheers,
> Filip
Well, damn. Don't know how the message got removed. Anyways, here it is :)

Hi all.

I would like to request your attention to a vote that will start this
midnight, regarding a rearrangement of the top ten Wikipedias that are
displayed on the main wikipedia portal (http://www.wikipedia.org 
<http://www.wikipedia.org/>).

This topic has been wandering around for a long time on
Talk:www.wikipedia.org template
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:www.wikipedia.org_template>, coming
to surface in many occasions, especially on the times around the
milestone of 100.000 articles of the Chinese and Russian Wikipedias.

After a tentative wrap-up of all the proposals made in that page
throughout the months in Talk:www.wikipedia.org template#rethinking the
top ten
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Www.wikipedia.org_template#rethinking_the_top_ten>,
a discussion was launched in *Top Ten Wikipedias
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Top_Ten_Wikipedias>*, to which all the
major Wikipedias have been invited to in their village pump.

A lot of good opinions have been collected and discussed, and a vote
proposal
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Top_Ten_Wikipedias#Vote_proposal>
has been made and received some feedback. That proposal was now
implemented on Metapub. Please head to the poll
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub#Top_10_Wikipedias.28poll.29> to
vote. I hope to see you there! --Waldir
<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Waldir> 12:33, 5 July 2008 (UTC)


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[Lars Aronsson]

Filip Maljkovic wrote (on behalf of Waldir):

> I would like to request your attention to a vote that will start this
> midnight, regarding a rearrangement of the top ten Wikipedias that are
> displayed on the main wikipedia portal

> Please head to the poll
> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub#Top_10_Wikipedias.28poll.29>
> to vote. I hope to see you there! --Waldir

You failed to mention what sort of authority or mandate this poll
has been given, compared to all previous opinions, votes and polls
on the same topic in recent years.  I don't even know whether the
design of the www.wikipedia.org front page is the responsibility
of the WMF board, its chairman or the CEO.  Will they agree to be
micromanaged by spontaneous polls among the audience?  After the
vote has ended on July 31, who will implement the changes?  Who
decided the time limits for this poll, and the criteria for who
can vote (account 3 months ago, 500 edits total)?  To an outside
reader it might seem like anybody can make the rules and decide
anything.  Does this mean I can start a new poll on the same
subject in September?

I don't mind an opinion poll.  I don't mind the front page being
redesigned.  What I do question is the right to initiate new polls
or institutions (last time it was the community council) that take
the shape of government over the WMF.  The WMF should be ruled
according to its bylaws, not by spontaneous mobs.


--
  Lars Aronsson (lars@...)
  Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se

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[Thomas Dalton]

> I don't even know whether the
> design of the www.wikipedia.org front page is the responsibility
> of the WMF board, its chairman or the CEO.

The contents of that page is determined by anyone with the power to
edit protect pages on meta, namely
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Www.wikipedia.org_template

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[Florence Devouard-3]

Lars Aronsson wrote:

> Filip Maljkovic wrote (on behalf of Waldir):
>
>> I would like to request your attention to a vote that will start this
>> midnight, regarding a rearrangement of the top ten Wikipedias that are
>> displayed on the main wikipedia portal
>
>> Please head to the poll
>> <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metapub#Top_10_Wikipedias.28poll.29>
>> to vote. I hope to see you there! --Waldir
>
> You failed to mention what sort of authority or mandate this poll
> has been given, compared to all previous opinions, votes and polls
> on the same topic in recent years.

Apparently the same as previous years...

  I don't even know whether the
> design of the www.wikipedia.org front page is the responsibility
> of the WMF board, its chairman or the CEO.

No, no, and no. At least, unless the community decides to put something
illegal in the USA, I hope that the CEO, the Chair or the board will
always have the sense not to decide they have the responsibility of the
design of this page. What would be next if they do ?
Oh, presumably, I guess the community would be served by a "we need to
improve the communication and we'll serve the readers with a video of
Jimmy asking funds to the crowds". And if so, what will be next ? WMF
being in charge of deciding the design of all main pages ? WMF deciding
to be in charge of deciding of the editing policy ? WMF deciding who is
allowed to be sysop ?

Will they agree to be
> micromanaged by spontaneous polls among the audience?

Are will they agree to micromanage the projects ???

   After the

> vote has ended on July 31, who will implement the changes?  Who
> decided the time limits for this poll, and the criteria for who
> can vote (account 3 months ago, 500 edits total)?  To an outside
> reader it might seem like anybody can make the rules and decide
> anything.  Does this mean I can start a new poll on the same
> subject in September?
>
> I don't mind an opinion poll.  I don't mind the front page being
> redesigned.  What I do question is the right to initiate new polls
> or institutions (last time it was the community council) that take
> the shape of government over the WMF.  The WMF should be ruled
> according to its bylaws, not by spontaneous mobs.

Well, the projects largely run on precedent and consensus. Hopefully, if
you start a new poll in september, you will get 10 people telling you
"are you nuts, we just voted on this !" and no one will come vote on
your poll. When you really think of it, the ENTIRE project has been run
by spontaneous "mobs" since 2001, and up to date, it has been pretty
successful.

Fact is, our projects are not, should not, be run by WMF. If we take the
line that WMF is a host provider, then the host provider does not decide
what is in the projects. If the WMF decide of the way the projects are
run, then WMF is not a host, it is THE editor of the project.

WMF did not come before, or even at the same time than the projects. It
came *after* because it was meant to support them, to help them do what
the projects could not do themselves (in particular funding). Not to run
them. It was never meant to run the projects.

Now, you ask one good question though. "Who will implement the changes
?". Well the developers. That is... the ones paid by the Foundation.
What if they refuse to do so, on the principle that, say, the ED has
opposed them doing so ? That's a fair question. There are various
alternatives. What do citizens do when they do not agree with the way
their government goes beyond running the state, but start trying to run
their personal lives. Voting differently at next elections,
demonstrating in the streets, sending petitions, requesting resignation
of the prime minister, throwing a revolution, moving to another country
where the grass is greener...

I am actually a bit abashed by your questions and hope that they have
not been planted in your minds. But to second your questionning about
"institutions", I fail to understand the relative opposition to a wiki
council sort of thing. In the past, on the projects, certain decisions
were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew,
some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And
that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created. I know
some complain arbcom are not working so well, but can you really figure
an active community of 400 people making the decision to ban a bugger ?
What a huge loss of time for 400 people ! Huge opportunity for internal
warring as well. I, for a start, think much more efficient to delegate
certain decision making to a subgroup.

That said, I also think that decisions such as new wikipedia.org main
page SHOULD BE KEPT global, with no delegation of power, because there
are one of these last few opportunities for different linguistic
communities to work together to come to ONE decision. That's a typical
barnraising event (just as deciding logos) that makes wonder to make
people feel their opinion matter and that they belong to a global
project. The huge benefits of having poeple feel this warmth of
belonging largely outweight the inconveniences of this little anarchy.

Ant



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[Anthony-73]

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9@...> wrote:
>  In the past, on the projects, certain decisions
> were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew,
> some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And
> that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created.

Replace "the entire communities" with "Jimmy Wales" and that last
sentence is correct.

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[Florence Devouard-3]

Anthony wrote:
> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9@...> wrote:
>>  In the past, on the projects, certain decisions
>> were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew,
>> some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And
>> that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created.
>
> Replace "the entire communities" with "Jimmy Wales" and that last
> sentence is correct.

On the english wikipedia, that's correct. Elsewhere, not... :-)

Ant


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[Anthony-73]

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:10 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9@...> wrote:

> Anthony wrote:
>> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9@...> wrote:
>>>  In the past, on the projects, certain decisions
>>> were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew,
>>> some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And
>>> that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created.
>>
>> Replace "the entire communities" with "Jimmy Wales" and that last
>> sentence is correct.
>
> On the english wikipedia, that's correct. Elsewhere, not... :-)
>

Ah, good point, I misread you.

As an ob-on-topic question, have any of the other projects managed to
define "consensus" in some reasonable manner?  Is an equivalent term
even used in the non-English projects?

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[Nemo_bis]

Anthony, 8 luglio 2008 17.01
>As an ob-on-topic question, have any of the other projects managed to
>define "consensus" in some reasonable manner?  Is an equivalent term
>even used in the non-English projects?

See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Consensus&action=edit§ion=8 .

Nemo
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[Ray Saintonge]

Anthony wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 10:10 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9@...> wrote:
>  
>> Anthony wrote:
>>    
>>> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 3:04 AM, Florence Devouard <Anthere9@...> wrote:
>>>      
>>>>  In the past, on the projects, certain decisions
>>>> were taken by the entire communities. Then, as the communities grew,
>>>> some people realised that some degree of delegation was necessary. And
>>>> that's why for example, the arbitration committees were created.
>>>>        
>>> Replace "the entire communities" with "Jimmy Wales" and that last
>>> sentence is correct.
>>>      
>> On the english wikipedia, that's correct. Elsewhere, not... :-)
>>
>>    
> Ah, good point, I misread you.
>
>  

You could both be right ... when you consider that in the most ancient
days the English Wikipedia was the only game in town. ;-)

Ec

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[Anthony-73]

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 11:50 AM, Nemo_bis <nemowiki@...> wrote:
> Anthony, 8 luglio 2008 17.01
>>As an ob-on-topic question, have any of the other projects managed to
>>define "consensus" in some reasonable manner?  Is an equivalent term
>>even used in the non-English projects?
>
> See here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Consensus&action=edit§ion=8 .
>
For those of you following at home, who may be as confused by this
response as I was, I think Nemo's referring to the list of interwiki
links for [[Wikipedia:Consensus]], implying that yes, many projects do
have an equivalent concept.

I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have
managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.

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[Nemo_bis]

Anthony:
>I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.

[[it:Wikipedia:Consenso]] was translated from en.wiki. It does not actually define what "consensus" means, implies that there is consensus when nobody changes your edit (on the article, policy or whatever) - i.e. there is no edit war -, and focuses on what can be done to achieve this, referring to concepts like NPOV, Wikipedia is not a democracy, Assume good faith and - about polls and surveys - «Non correre alle urne» (lit. «do not run to the polls»: [[m:Don't vote on everything]], [[m:Polls are evil]]).
[[fr:Wikipédia:Consensus]] quotes this message: http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2005-July/026513.html.

Nemo
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[Thomas Dalton]

> I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have
> managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.

Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't
something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you
don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the
power to undo any change.

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[Anthony-73]

On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
>> I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have
>> managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
>
> Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't
> something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you
> don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the
> power to undo any change.
>
That may be your definition of "consensus", but it's certainly not the
only one.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making suggest that
there is much more to consensus decision making than just letting
everyone do whatever they want.  In fact, what you describe sounds
more like anarchy than consensus.

The model described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus
seems somewhat close to the practice I've seen on the English
projects, at least in those areas that have decisionmakers who
formally declare whether or not consensus has been reached (e.g. AfD).
 Interestingly, [[Wikipedia:Consensus]] doesn't even seem to link to
that page or point to the IETF model.

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[Thomas Dalton]

2008/7/9 Anthony <wikimail@...>:

> On Tue, Jul 8, 2008 at 6:06 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
>>> I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have
>>> managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
>>
>> Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't
>> something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you
>> don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the
>> power to undo any change.
>>
> That may be your definition of "consensus", but it's certainly not the
> only one.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus and
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_decision-making suggest that
> there is much more to consensus decision making than just letting
> everyone do whatever they want.  In fact, what you describe sounds
> more like anarchy than consensus.

I didn't say consensus was just letting everyone do what they want,
it's what naturally evolves out of letting everyone do what they want
(or, rather, letting everyone stop anyone else doing what they want,
which is subtly different). Since anyone can just undo anything it
requires people to stop and talk about anything controversial and
discuss it until they reach a compromise that everyone agrees not to
undo (not the same as everyone supporting it, that's unanimity rather
than consensus). You throw in a little peer pressure which prevents a
tiny minority being overly stubborn (they're allowed to be a little
stubborn, otherwise you have a tyranny of the majority, not
consensus), and you have consensus decision making.

> The model described at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rough_consensus
> seems somewhat close to the practice I've seen on the English
> projects, at least in those areas that have decisionmakers who
> formally declare whether or not consensus has been reached (e.g. AfD).
>  Interestingly, [[Wikipedia:Consensus]] doesn't even seem to link to
> that page or point to the IETF model.

Most decisions on the English Wikipedia are made using true consensus.
Bold-Revert-Discuss is basically a description of consensus decision
making, and that (and slight variations) is what's used for the vast
majority of content decisions. It becomes increasingly difficult to
reach a true consensus as the number of people involves increases,
which is why things like RfA and AfD end up using rough consensus,
which is somewhere between consensus and democracy (basically, you
accept that you aren't going to please everyone and just ignore
stubborn minorities - although RfA tends to just ignore all minorities
due to the lack of any real discussion). True consensus, by its very
nature, doesn't require someone to determine consensus, it just
requires someone to think there's a consensus, perform the action and
observe that no-one reverts it (at least, on Wikipedia it's generally
one person, in other situations it may be a group effort to get things
rolling).

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[Andre Engels]

On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
>> I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have
>> managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
>
> Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't
> something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you
> don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the
> power to undo any change.

Which implies that Wikipedia consensus is actually the power of the
person with the longest breath...


--
Andre Engels, andreengels@...
ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels

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[Ting Chen-2]

> For those of you following at home, who may be as confused by this
> response as I was, I think Nemo's referring to the list of interwiki
> links for [[Wikipedia:Consensus]], implying that yes, many projects do
> have an equivalent concept.
>
> I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have
> managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.

The chinese version was originally a translation from an earlier english version. It was later customized a little. It says basically in the best situation a consensus is a result of a discussion when no one opposes that result. But in most cases such an ideal consensus is not possible so a pole is needed in such a situation. The result of a pole is not a consensus, but it most likely reflects how the majority of the community see the problem and thus a mean to find a consensus. In most cases if 2/3 of the voters are in agreement then it is considered a quite good consensus. In some cases a more higher percentage is needed (for example for admin an agreement of 85% is needed and for bureaucrats an agreement of 90% is needed).

Ting
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[Thomas Dalton]

2008/7/9 Andre Engels <andreengels@...>:

> On Wed, Jul 9, 2008 at 12:06 AM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton@...> wrote:
>>> I haven't been able to figure out whether or not any of them have
>>> managed to define that concept in a reasonable manner, though.
>>
>> Consensus doesn't need defining. Consensus decision making isn't
>> something you actively do, it's what happens automatically when you
>> don't impose any other form of decision making and everyone has the
>> power to undo any change.
>
> Which implies that Wikipedia consensus is actually the power of the
> person with the longest breath...

Don't underestimate the power of peer pressure - most people will give
in if everyone else disagrees with them. Also, most people are
concerned more with the bigger picture of making an encyclopaedia
rather than with the exact wording of one particular sentence in one
particular article, so will willingly concede in the interests of the
project because they recognise that people's time could be better
spent. When they won't, consensus has failed and some other method of
making a decision is required (eg. blocking the edit warrior and doing
what everyone else wants).

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