On 1/18/14, 2:56 PM, Fæ wrote:
For example, a simple yes/no RFC on adding an ingestion process for
MP4 video upload might now be successful. The legal aspect can be as
simple as "WMF legal has determine this poses no risk to the WMF,
uploaders or reusers, refer to <essay>" and the technical aspect could
be "See <essay> for an explanation of optimized transcoding, workflow
processes and test examples". There's nothing new in keeping it
simple.
That comes a *little* close to presupposing some consensus though, which
the RFC is in theory supposed to be actually looking for, not declaring
to have already happened. The RFC you're contemplating sounds like a
somewhat different way of saying: "A consensus has emerged that MP4
video uploading can be enabled on Wikimedia Commons without major legal
or technical problems (see [here] for details). Do you therefore agree
that it should be enabled?"
If true, that makes sense, but is there such a consensus already? I
worry that these kinds of short-and-snappy RFCs lose the
request-for-comments aspect, which is supposed to be about people
developing an understanding of a situation (including its details!) and
a consensus emerging... not just a vote, especially not a vote set up in
a way to make it easy for people to glance at a page and cast a vote
without participating in discussion or familiarizing themselves with the
details of the issues under consideration.
I guess this is more of a meta-complaint, because I don't have any
particular objection to MP4 uploading. But I worry about RFCs as
"ratification votes", especially those that seem to draw
"get-out-the-vote" efforts from third-party sites, where you get an
influx of yes/no votes from people who came in via a post on Slashdot or
elsewhere, rather than a discussion/consensus process.
-Mark
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