I do agree that this kind of action must be severely limited. We cannot go on like this; we've used up our shutdown for about five years. The shutdown makes waves, but its effect will diminish with overuse. This is the kind of thing we should not repeat for a long while.
On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 5:24 PM, George Herbert <[email protected]>wrote: > On Wed, Jan 18, 2012 at 3:39 PM, FT2 <[email protected]> wrote: > > It's worth pointing out the discussion was open from 15 December to 16 > > January before any close. > > No, there was informal discussion going back into December. "The > discussion" - the concrete, date-attached specific policy and > implementation proposals and so forth - was about 3 days worth. > > People talking about it and bandying informal ideas around for a month > doesn't make it a formal consensus discussion. > > That having happened is why anyone reasonable here should be starting > from the point that the sense of the community was correctly > identified through all this, which I don't dispute. But bare sense of > the community is mob rule. Wikipedia is not a majority-rules, snap > decisions mob, despite occasional resemblance thereof. It is not well > served when community leaders treat it as such, or the Foundation acts > in a manner to encourage that behavior. > > That way lies even more madness and despair, and a break with a lot of > currently very carefully (if badly) balanced precedent and informal > process. > > I don't believe the decision was *wrong* - But a poorly made decision > that's right can set a behavioral and decisionmaking precedent that is > in its own way far worse than having made a wrong decision. > > There are a whole raft of nuanced issues that were bulldozed in all of > this, ranging from the wisdom of WMF / Wikipedia taking political > stands organizationally, to lack of sufficient consideration for the > invisible third leg of the stool (the readers / userbase), to rapidity > of decisionmaking, to aspects of the community majority bullying those > who for some reason opposed the change. > > Again - the decision wasn't *wrong*. I certainly oppose SOPA, > understand why other organizations blacked out and WMF and the > community sought to do so here. SOPA is wrong on more political, > policy, and technical levels than I can conveniently count in one > email. > > But it can be wrong, and WMF could potentially be wrong to engage in > the advocacy action. It can be wrong, and the community can damage > itself significantly in making snap decisions on objecting to SOPA. > > It can be wrong enough, apparently, to convince its opponents that > opposing it is enough to justify bulldozing the usual Wikipedia > community process. > > If people wanted this badly to do it, the actual solid RFC should have > been going in late December or first week of January. Eventually, > procrastinating precludes reasonable responsible action. It does not > appear to have prevented effective or community supported action, in > the end, but the reasonableness and responsibleness of the process is > the issue. > > > -- > -george william herbert > [email protected] > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
