Talk:Task force/Recommendations/Community health 7

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Scope beyond English Wikipedia

It might be helpful to note that this page (and recommendations/facts on it) tend to only relate to the English Wikipedia... ~Philippe 23:22, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• Some of them do, and some of them don't. I'll try to clarify. Randomran 23:33, 9 January 2010 (UTC)

• • The problems exist cross wiki and so binding negotiated/mediated solutions could work everywhere. Currently on Commons there is a BIG conflict about placing images in categories. This dispute has gone on for months with attempts to reach a compromise failing. There are several other issues at Commons that have stalled and could benefit from a negotiated binding process. FloNight♥♥♥ 12:58, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Tweaking to broadening to other Foundation wikis

I see problem with decision making on all wikis. The scale of the problems is larger on Wikipedia English but as projects grow the current consensus models breaks down. Smaller wikis have different types of problems making a consensus decision that represents them.

Right now on all wikis some types of decisions are seen as final to the extent that there is a process to close the discussion/vote and make a semi-permanent or permanent decision. What we need is to find a way to bring the rest of the decision making into a model that closes, is actionable with the understanding that it will not be immediately restarted. This could include policy decisions, too. The key is to make a process that includes a large enough group of people that all ideas are represented so that people will buy in to the final decision since their ideas were fairly represented and considered.

We need to make sure that we address decision making cross wiki. There are special issues with these decisions. Meta is a wiki where some types of cross wiki issues are discussed. Changes to processes are discussed on Meta. Language barriers are a major issue in these discussions.

The Global sysop is an example of a Meta discussion and vote that has stalled for years because of problems explaining the problem, getting a representative people to write the proposal, and then closing the process with a binding vote. Looking at the current discussion page, you can see the typical problems with Meta consensus discussions. FloNight♥♥♥ 13:55, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• You're right, the global sysop dispute fits the form perfectly. You have basically two equal groups discussing a proposal. But there's no consensus-building, because the groups are too massive to have a reasonable discussion (and indeed, there is some interpretation that talking to a voter is "harassment"). There's also no consensus-building because that would require a commitment from volunteers that no one really wants to make. "Representative negotiation" would be ideal to scale this dispute down to something manageable, and "binding mediation" would definitely give people the incentive to negotiate instead of a vote-and-run. ... It's important that these processes have legitimacy though. Even in real life, there are always problems where stakeholders expect their representative to simply fight for their position, when negotiation always involves some degree of compromise. Randomran 16:00, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
  • This is an example of a "good" consensus discussion under the model that we are currently using.

• • While frustrating to the people involved, it is following the established wiki norms and is moving forward, though very slowly and loads of bumps along the way. This issue was discussed on talk pages for years and been re-written over and over again. Anyone that was interested could contribute there. Clearly many of the people now voting did not participate in a way that gave them a chance to express their opinion and get it into the version of the policy being voted on now.

• • The people involved are known to me, and I know that they are not locked into a version that makes people dissatisfied. And are open to tweaking it more to address new concerns raised now. But sorting out the good changes at this late stage is problematic since many people think that they are voting for a final version of the policy.

• • I think with the introduction of better processes, we can find a way to make better decisions in a more timely way and leave more people feeling better about it in the end. FloNight♥♥♥ 16:13, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

• • • 100% agree. Especially the part about "many people think that they are voting for a final version of the policy". I think this recommendation is very important, because it drives large discussions away from "vote-and-run", and back towards a collaborative process. Randomran 16:32, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Implementation on each wiki

These recommendations beg the question about how they would be introduced into each wiki. Unlike other proposals and recommendations, these need the direct buy-in involvement of a large number of editors for the process to start.

Since these recommendations directly impact day to day editing, I think something directly involving Communities needs to be put in place for them to be implemented. Do you think that we should include a suggestion for an ongoing task force or committee that would work with each wikicommunity to develop the new processes? FloNight♥♥♥ 18:19, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• There would definitely need to be people who are ready to implement it. I'm not sure it would need buy-in in the sense that we'd need 80-90% of the community who is willing to accept it. Ideally, we want the community to accept this voluntarily. But seeing as the community already has so many problems deciding issues and building a consensus, we are facing a circular problem here. The community must come to an agreement in order to fix the community, but we must fix the community in order for the community to come to an agreement. Even though I have some faith in the community to do the right thing, I'm also a little nervous because of the community's "unhealthy" state. Randomran 18:38, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• • The Foundation Board does not directly administer the wikis so there must be people on each wiki that will make it happen or it will not get done. There needs to be some type of process put in place for these to get actioned. How do you see that happening? FloNight♥♥♥ 19:21, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• We'd probably need a handful of dedicated people to implement it. Might be best to start with a pilot program. You'd need a group of people to design a new dispute resolution page not unlike "RFC", and then a dedicated group of people to run it. Either a group of administrators or a group of mediators (for projects that have them). Randomran 21:04, 12 January 2010 (UTC)

• I'm just making my presence felt as Random made me aware of this discussion with a note on my talk page. I confess I don't feel competent to help with this. I, fortunately, manage to avoid disputes on en:wp. Where I have encountered them I'm generally chilled out enough not to raise the temperature and try my best to be a good citizen, I take a deep breath and count to ten before submitting if I have to :o)

My instinctive response is that I feel we have policies in place to deal with most disputes and where there is a hard case I'm sure we can point to more general principles.

I think conflict is inevitable on Wikipedia. We see plenty of disputes in the field of science in the wider (ie non-wiki) world; we quite often hear of respected scientists arguing in a very public manner, sometimes through the medium of articles in the mainstream press, sometimes in the courts. I think dispute is an inevitable part of recording knowledge; professional historians don't agree on everything either.

Nevertheless, I understand the motivation for tackling it: the air of hostility is felt to be driving people away. Looking at the recommendation I don't see anything that seems unreasonable, anything is worth a try.

So, to address the question of implementation, I think it's a question that (had we had fuller, more active task forces and hence more recommendations) would apply to lots of recommendations that aren't primarily of a technical nature. I'm not sure what the answer is but an ideas arises: going on the assumption that this might be a cross-recommendation problem (ie, how do we get communities to accept strategy consensus) we could set up a dedicated page to discuss this and advertise it on Village Pump. Maybe call it something like Implementation of Strategy Recommendations? --Bodnotbod 13:34, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

I think disputes are inevitable too. What doesn't have to be inevitable is repetition and burnout, though. I think getting some feedback from other groups about implementation would be a good idea. I don't know that the other task forces are going through the same thing. But we could start with our stuff, and maybe others would follow suit if they wanted some help. Randomran 16:03, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

The only way I can think of avoiding repetition is not archiving perennial debates on the talk pages, or archiving them but leaving a summary of previous consensus. Perhaps a further innovation could be that any article content that asserts something which has been endlessly warred over could provide an inline signifier which links to the discussion(s) that took place.

For example, if there's perennial discussion over whether the article subject wore a red or blue hat it could say "X wore a red hat^{[see discussion]}".

I think for many things that are discussed ad-infinitum there ought to be reputable sources that have given both views, so both views could be placed in an article with their relevant citations. --Bodnotbod 18:52, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

Err, I probably didn't articulate myself well enough. Repetition has more to do with people bludgeoning each other with opposing viewpoints, rather than building consensus. This is a much more "meta" activity that transcends articles. Most of the recommendations here aim to finally force the opposing viewpoints to stop arguing, and start working out a compromise. Randomran 21:21, 19 January 2010 (UTC)

My recommendations which I believe will improve community health

These are my recommendations which I believe will improve community health. 1. Give tougher sactions to Users blocked over a short period which act in bad faith as a appose to INDEF blocked Users which act in good faith. 2. Instead of plan to achieve these recommendations in 5 years, plan to achieve them in 6 months. These 2 things combined will be a very large improvement if not for Wikimedia then the standard wikipeida to say the least. These are my recommendations. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool 16:20, 23 January 2010 (UTC)

I disagree with the time period these targets should be reached within 6 weeks. 217.204.11.196 11:09, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

It is probably not possible to do them all in six weeks. But since many of the ideas are things that can or will be implemented by volunteer editors, there is no reason that people need to wait to begin working on putting the best ideas into action. FloNight♥♥♥ 11:25, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Perhaps User:FloNight is correct? However it should be completed asap. mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool 17:14, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

I still sustain that it should be completed asap. Mcjakeqcool 09:59, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Brainstorming-stage proposal: Method for consensus building

I wrote a proposal which is still in the brainstorming stage, w:Wikipedia:Method for consensus building. Its topic appears to be within the scope of this task force, but not the subject of any current proposals I've seen here. So I'll bring it to your attention and ask for feedback and suggestions. Ikluft 02:23, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Well, you guys are on your own. The Wikipedians deleted a bunch of the templates I created to experiment with developing changes. I give up trying to assist or contribute further to this dysfunctional community. Ikluft 19:12, 4 April 2010 (UTC)

I feel this is a very cynical view to take, wikipeida should work together to improve on being a 'dysfunctional community'. Mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool 15:14, 1 May 2010 (UTC)

Template:CB-support2 Template:CB-support2 Template:CB-support1 Template:CB-support1 Template:CB-support Template:CB-support0 Template:CB-support0 Template:CB-neutral Template:CB-neutral Template:CB-oppose0 Template:CB-oppose0 Template:CB-oppose1 Template:CB-oppose1 Template:CB-oppose Template:CB-oppose2 Template:CB-oppose2

Done. Do you still feel that wikipeida is a 'dysfunctional community'? Mcjakeqcool 15:48, 6 May 2010 (UTC)

• Those support/oppose templates, such as Template:CB-support2, do not exist here now. -Wikid77 23:07, 6 July 2010 (UTC)

I feel a template that supports those who need it is a good thing for wikipeida as a whole. I feel that it may help the likes of Ikluft who think wikipeida is a dysfunctional community and help wikipeida function to there standards. I am postive about wikipeida and the future of wikipeida at the moment, but if a template can make wikipeida a better more postive place that is the best thing to do. Mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool 23:53, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

Glad there is wiki:love as far as the templates are conserned but do you User:Ikluft still feel wikipedia is a 'dysfunctional community'? Also happy new year have a piece of piping hot fried chicken. Mcjakeqcool 00:04, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

[Foundation-l] Organization on Wikipedia that deals with content issues.

Recent discussion on the perennial proposal. --Nemo 13:52, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I feel the main problem is there has not been ENOUGH discussion recently and if I have a proposal to make is that there is more discussion expecially in the Wikipediamedia task-force. Mcjakeqcool Mcjakeqcool 23:28, 28 February 2011 (UTC)