Wikipedia:Advisory Council on Project Development

The following is a proposed Wikipedia policy, guideline, or process. The proposal may still be in development, under discussion, or in the process of gathering consensus for adoption.

The Advisory Council on Project Development is a group of Wikipedians that was formed at the invitation of the Arbitration Committee, with the endorsement of Jimbo Wales. Invitations were sent by Kirill Lokshin to an unknown number of people inviting them to become members. The criteria for selection have not been made public.

The announcement was met by immediate disapproval by some community members and a request for comment was created. Disaproval seems to focus on the ArbCom having created what is perceived to be a far-reaching Advisory Council without community-wide input, and that the membership of the council ought to be elected.[1] Those supporting the creation of the council counter that since it is just an advisory think-tank, it will not have any powers and that it is not unusual for organizations to create advisory committees without elections.[2]

Council members have begun conversations here, and the issues being discussed are also being summarized and organized on this page.

Community members have proposed or started alternative forums for discussing community issues including:

Mission

proposed:

"The group has neither executive authority nor special status nor any powers. Its remit lies exclusively in the realm of ideas: to chuck them about, to chew them, to digest them, to improve them, to develop them. Its focus will be providing considered or imaginative solutions to longstanding problems."

Drawn from the original announcement:

"The Advisory Council acts as an advisory body to the Arbitration Committee and to the community; considers various issues facing the project and develops ideas, proposals, and recommendations for improving it; and serves as a forum for the sharing of best practices among the different areas within the project, The group can be regarded as a high-level think-tank, coming up with ideas that either the Committee or the community as a whole might choose to pursue. The Advisory Council also advises the Committee directly, providing it with feedback and ideas from a cross-section of the community that's not otherwise involved in its work."

Name change?

A name change might be a good idea, as this one sounds decidedly formal, which could be offputting considering the group is one with no real formal power. Maybe Wikipedia:Think tank, Wikipedia:Development planning group, or something similar might be useful. Personally, as an outsider, I like "Think tank" the best. John Carter (talk) 17:19, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care what it's called and don't think it particularly matter. "Think tank" is as good as anything. Lara 17:36, 27 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Organization

There appears to be a strong consensus among members of the council that all of its activities should be transparent and on-wiki. Conversations have barely started on how it should be organized.

Process

No process has been agreed upon as yet. It has been proposed that this page be used to facilitate the process, but this is an experiment that has just begun.

Suggested functions

Facilitate consensus - Take the role of a facilitator for the larger community: collect, summarize, refactor, edit and redact previous community and council discussions.
Request and direct data analysis - Establish links with those capable of providing statistical data to enable decision making based on empirical data.
Apply a structured problem-solving approach to issues such as those used in managerial [3] or design environments.^[1]

Membership

Membership is currently by invitation of the Arbitration Committee.

There seems to be broad consensus that if this is to be an ongoing organization there should be a mechanism for getting community input and approval of its members. There also seems to be consensus of the current members that since they have no official powers there is nothing lost by having conversations and trying to come up some solutions to ongoing problems. Creating a mechanism for membership seems to be less pressing than demonstrating that the council can be of some value.

This is a highly controversial and very knotty problem. If the membership is appointed, accusations will fly of a self-annointed group or a cabal. If the membership is elected, it will elevate the group's status to an elite, ensuring that only non-controversial editors willing to go through an election are included. If membership is wide open, it may grow too large, or too prone to disruption, to achieve anything particularly helpful.

Agenda

It is understood that The Arbitration Committee will probably be providing a list of suggested topics for discussion. There seems to be consensus that the council can and should create their own list as well. The larger community has also been asked to contribute topics here.

Possible next steps

Discuss and agree on the process we will use to run this council.
Create individual issue pages for each proposed agenda item (listed below) which include an analysis and history of the issue.
Decide first issue to focus on (after issue pages are created)

Issues being considered

Issue pages can be started on any issue that council members think needs to be considered. Preliminary work on an issue page should give a background summary of the issue: its history; a rough analysis and any relevant data; and first attempt at a definition of the problem. Issues that have been brought up so far include (in no particular order):

Cleaning up BLP The project doesn't have the resources to monitor or maintain all of the biographies of living people.
Drafting a mission statement
Policies Arguing over vague policies. Editors trying to alter policies to give them an advantage in content disputes. Editors controlling policy pages to keep "their" version intact, while ignoring discussions or consensus. Policy changes by persistent small groups.
Addition and retention of users DGG (talk) Awadewit (talk)
Community decision making (started)
Governance issues Term lengths, holding other positions, retention of privileges after resignation or end of terms, public perception, impeachment mechanisms.
Problematic pages [4]
Fictional elements —Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk)
Organization of this council [5][6]
Deletion policies

Long term agenda

Opening up membership of this council (broad consensus)[7]

Decisions

This council is committed to open discussions to be held on wikipedia. [8]

Members

The Advisory Council is currently comprised of the following editors (and their signatures):

Awadewit — Awadewit (talk)
BirgitteSB — BirgitteSB
Casliber — Casliber (talk · contribs)
Cla68 — Cla68 (talk)
David Fuchs — Der Wohltemperierte Fuchs^(talk)
DGG — DGG (talk)
Dweller — Dweller (talk)

Inactive

Former members

Discussions

Advisory Council talk page (for general comments and inquiries about the Advisory Council)
Advisory Council forum (for discussion among Advisory Council members)
Advisory Council forum talk page (for outside comments about topics being discussed by the Advisory Council)

Daily summary of activity

Note: summaries over 14 days old can be found here

July 15th:
- New threads: First project proposals, Discussion process proposal
- Continuing discussion:Apparent consensus on A proposal on how to proceed -- a process to use this page to organize our activities.
- Actions: two council members have left.
July 14th:
- New threads: A proposal on how to proceed
- Continuing discussion:
- Actions:Broad consensus on Openness of discussion, Redesign of this page began
July 13th:
- New threads: Problem statements, Format of discussion pages, Introductions, Wikivoices recording on group, Who can get the Flagged Revs coding done?
- Continuing discussion:
July 12th:
- New threads:
- Continuing discussion:
July 11th:
- New threads: Creating an agenda, Who we are, Elections, Format of discussion pages, the view others take of us, Openness of discussions
- Actions: This page, the forum page and associated talk pages were created. Initial discussions begin. RfC created.
Before July 11th: The ArbCom discussed the formation of this council, identified potential members, and sent out invitations via e-mail.

Reference

^ Koberg, Don (1973). The Universal Traveler (1976 ed.). William Kaufmann, Inc. ISBN 0-913232-05-X. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)