This is a longish post. Here's the basic point: we've got too many places to discuss things. So I think we should have a discussion about whether to get rid of the forums, in favor of having general project discussion on the wiki itself. Do you agree? How should we do this, if so? Note that I am not making a proposal. I am gathering data and seeing how people feel about an idea that I am only toying with myself.
Discuss THIS :-) here: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1579.0.html =============== Now that the proposals system is in operation, as several people have pointed out, it constitutes *yet another* locale for discussion, even if it is more practically-oriented discussion. Note that the proposals system can't be used merely to raise questions. It must make specific proposals or raise specific and well-defined issues for decision. I am personally concerned that there is just too many choices about "where to talk about things," even if the proper use of each of the venues on offer is *fairly* clearly defined. I mean that we have * Forums for general discussion * CZ:Proposals for discussion of actionable proposals * Various governance groups for decisionmaking-level discussion of proposals * Workgroup mailing lists for workgroup issues * Workgroup wiki pages for workgroup issues (too!) * Citizendium-Editors for general editor discussion (not used much) * The blog for general public discussion I think that as we add various new things to CZ, to keep the overall CZ experience as simple as possible, we should start thinking about removing old ones that might not be working so well. I have always wanted to prevent CZ from becoming a giant Frankenstein monster, with ever-creeping numbers of policy pages, etc. So I am wondering if we should not do something radical in the present case and quite simply close down the forums. How might this work? I am going to make a rough first stab at a proposal, and then step back for a week (or so) and see what the community seems to think. Here it is. First, shut down the forums--all of the boards. (Of course, keep them up, but make them "read-only.") In place of the forums, we move general discussion of broad issues to talk pages attached to the relevant CZ: namespace pages. For example, if you wanted to discuss the neutrality policy, you would now be directed to do so on [[CZ:Neutrality Policy]] instead of the special board on the forums. I think wiki pages are substandard as venues for discussion for a variety of reasons, but I'm not so worried that they will get out of hand, or interfere terribly with article-writing--as they often did in Wikipedia's first year, when project discussion took place mainly on-wiki, before we created the Meta-Wiki and generally moved policy discussion to Wikipedia-L and WikiEN-L. The advantages of having the discussion on the wiki, aside from the main advantage of consolidating discussion, are: it places contributors closer to the policy commented on, so they're better informed; moreover, they'll be better placed to improve and maintain those policy pages, which is something those pages badly need. Finally, it is easier to link to articles--and go right to the articles to work on them!--if one is discussing policy on the wiki. One possible large disadvantage that I can see is that it might distract some people who might otherwise use their on-wiki time for article writing. General public discussion of CZ (questions from prospective contributors, help requests from wiki-newbies, etc.), which currently takes place on special forum boards, could take place on the blog. We might add a new person or persons to the blogroll to post regularly and welcome new people, answer questions, address critics, etc. Alternatively, we might add some sort of MediaWiki extension that would allow unsigned-in people to post (moderated) comments and questions on a few special CZ pages. The latter would probably be better. All discussion of specific workgroup issues might be directed to workgroup talk pages. The workgroup mailing lists will remain in operation as announcement lists--especially, I'd like to suggest, as a way to get workgroup editors and authors (regularly) to review and improve specific articles. But that's another issue, which I'll introduce hopefully before too much longer. Well that's the general idea. I am not married to it and I'm not proposing it (which is why this isn't in the proposals system!). I haven't fully discussed the advantages and disadvantages...I leave that to you if you're interested. Discuss here, please: http://forum.citizendium.org/index.php/topic,1579.0.html --Larry _______________________________________________ Citizendium-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.purdue.edu/mailman/listinfo/citizendium-l
