Wikipedia talk:BLP semiprotection petition

What are you asking for

Again, what is it you're actually asking for? Is it a change to the software that would automatically semiprotect any article deemed by some algorithm to be a BLP? Or does "automatically" just mean on sight when an admin identifies such an article?--Kotniski (talk) 08:59, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Presumably it would be done by a bot; no change to the software would be required, which is indeed much of the point of this petition. It would be trivial to give a bot the admin bit and have it apply indefinite semi-protection to all articles in Category:Living people. False negatives could be rectified on being discovered. What's being sought here is a policy change such that this move would be mandated; we have the technical capability now, but of course absent the WMF's intervention there is no way to get the policy to make it happen. Steve Smith (talk) 09:04, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why would WMF intervention be required? We make our own policies, don't we? (But I like the bot idea.)--Kotniski (talk) 11:07, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

We have no mechanism by which to make site-wide policy where there is non-trivial opposition. The status quo perpetuates itself indefinitely, which is why outside intervention is required (this is my interpretation; I don't pretend to be able to speak for Dr. Harris). Steve Smith (talk) 11:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

So you want us, as a community, to ask WMF to impose a policy on us because we as a community don't support it? And specifically on en.wp - why not on all WMF sites if it's such a good idea? Like the idea, but I can't see that there's any mileage in this way of going about it.--Kotniski (talk) 13:26, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I signed the petition because I indeed strongly support the idea; however Kotniski concerns are important. Shouldn't it be discussed on the appropriate policy pages, too? --Cyclopia ^talk 16:02, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This is in the right direction, and vastly better than flagged revs, but I've still got some concerns here. What determines whether an article is protected? A category, a tag? We can't manually semi protect these, there's just too many articles, but any other form can likely be edited out if one chooses to manipulate the system to open the article up. I'm supporting this petition, but with the understanding that the final product will be both accurate (affecting all BLPs and only BLPs) and not open to gaming the system. Them From Space 16:40, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Shouldn't belonging to the Category:Living people be necessary and sufficient? --Cyclopia ^talk 16:49, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) Yes, I had envisioned a Mediawiki software patch where an article is immediately sprotected as soon as the category:Living people goes on it, and this also applies to all the articles that have this tag already. To prevent "unlocking" the article by removal of the cat-living-people tag, this patch would have to work as a one-way latch, so that once an article is sprotected in this way, only a sysop could unprotect it, as is normal with sprotection now (only the mechanism would change, since again, we need this to be automatic). This does a needed job which otherwise would be manual for 300,000 BLPs, most of which are probably not sprotected now. So much for dealing with backlogs!
As for application of the cat tag to articles, I'm agnostic about who should have power to do this. If we allow ordinary-non-sysop name-users to do it, this would (I realize!) result in a way a non-sysop could sprotect an article! BUT, would this do much damage? My guess is (on the whole) not. So what, if a few articles about other than BLP, get cat-tagged wrong, and sprotected inappropriately? This does little damage while active, will soon be noticed and complained about, and can be easily fixed. The offending nameuser doing it as mistake or vandalism can then be dealt with, and their other edits scrutinized, as usual. As "vandalisms" go, a vandalism which (while active) only acts to lessen other vandalisms, is pretty benign. The same goes for BLP people who die and need the sprotection manually removed by a sysop. If that takes a week, so what?
I'll add a bit to the proposal to make all this clear. S B H arris 17:24, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I strongly disagree with the idea of a hardcoded MediaWiki patch. Bots are what is needed for this kind of thing. About semiprotection "leaking" in non-BLP articles, well, I agree personally it is perhaps not a great problem, but it is nonetheless worrying because many people won't feel at ease with such a "backdoor for semiprotection" open -and for right reasons. --Cyclopia ^talk 17:35, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I don't care if a bot does it. In practice, a bot that goes around doing such a highlevel sysop task as locking 10% of Wikipedia, is nearly indistinguishable from a software fix by the foundation anyway, as this would have to have permission and scrutiny at the highest board level. What matter who does the programming, after that? As for a "backdoor" into sprotection, the idea bothers me not at all. I'm interested in your "right reasons." They aren't obvious to me. S B H arris 17:41, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

A bot can turned off and on at ease, does not require the Foundation to be involved, does not require to be updated if incompatible changes in Wikimedia code are introduced, does not require the Foundation to check patches for security etc. It is a technically better and easier solution, I think.

About the sprotection backdoor, the thing does not bother me too much, either, but we cannot just think about us, but about the project and the community. And the right reasons that can make a LOT of people protest can be condensed, basically, as Founding principles n.2. --Cyclopia ^talk 18:15, 18 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Why is this a petition - just garner consensus for a new policy ?

As stated above this could be done by a bot if it were policy. I can't see why the foundation is being asked to do something. Peripitus (Talk) 23:09, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If it WERE clear policy, THEN the bot-implementation of it would be possible. And if wishes were horses, then beggers would ride! The WMFoundation is being asked to change policy here because this is a large enough policy change, that it could not happen by any known mechanism that WP has in place at the editor-discussion level. So the mechanism is stuck without a foundation-level (WMF board vote) fix. And yet, something is needed because the problem grows daily.

Right now, more than 1 article in 8 on WP is a BLP, and we are talking about page-protecting all of them. This is not something you can do by hand, but at the same time is also not something anyone dares program a 'bot to do and say "Well, I'm going to turn it on next week, unless I hear a lot of objections...." Because there will always be objections and there is no way to obtain consensus or take a vote.

Most new policy is made on WP incrementally, but unprotected BLP is a problem growing too fast now for incremental fixes. The fraction of WP which is BLP stubs increases regularly, and since new soccer goalies are created faster than new chemical elements, BLP stubs are due to be the largest WP category, eventually. S B H arris 23:50, 3 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Wait one second. If you are talking of explicitly bypassing consensus, I withdraw my name from the petition, no matter how much I agree with it. I understood this as a petition to get the Foundation consider the issue and endorsing a proposal, but I want such a proposal to be discussed by the community before approval. I don't want to have anything to do with something that trumps consensus. --Cyclopia ^talk 23:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Feel free, of course, but you should know that there is, in most important cases, no such thing as "consensus." It never works for large groups. Not in politics, and not on Wikipedia. Rather, what actually happens, is one side gets a bit more power and traction than the other, and forces them under duress to do something they would rather not. The article on WP:CONSENSUS merely describes some ideal state of affairs where some process supposedly works, and never suggests the actual truth, which is that most of the time it does NOT work. Instead, one side outlasts the other, the diehard screamers and blocked or topic-banned labeled as trollers, and that's the end of it. History shows that the size of human groups for which consensus works is about the size of your family. And that's only if mummy and daddy agree. If they don't, then mummy and daddy fight, and then there's alimony and child support. Why Jimbo (now divorced himself twice) and his merry crew of WP editors think humans are going to change stripes, when there's no evidence for it (and never has been), I dunno. But it's just a remarkable case of keeping the eyes squinched shut. What happened when Jimbo and Sanger disagreed on the direction of Wikipedia? Consensus it was not. S B H arris 01:00, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Please be clear, your personal opinions on sociology are pretty irrelevent. Are you trying to get the Foundation to impose by force something that the community does not want, or not? --Cyclopia ^talk 01:13, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

No, YOU be clear. Define your terms. What is the "community"? How would one even determine what "they" "want"? Next, why should the opinions of those who administrate or edit Wikipedia (ever??) count more than the people who stand to have a BLP made about them, against their wills, but have never edited? I'm reasonably sure that the average person who doesn't edit (which is most people) thinks that if they find themselves with a BLP on WP, that they can simply ask to have it removed, and it will be. The nearly universal reaction from those I've diabused of this notion, is shock and revulsion. Again, most people don't edit Wikipedia, however, so this is under their radar. Most people actually still think privacy exists on the net by force of law. When the public finally understands differently, they'll force WP to change, and it probably will not be pretty. I would suggest WP change itself before that happens. It's 400,000 BLPs now. By the time it gets to 4 million, if WP has not changed, congress will change it. S B H arris 01:23, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Ok, no need for everybody to get upset. I think Cyclopia's question is a valid one, and I'm assuming that the short answer is yes. While this tactic doesn't really put me off, it's only because I think the issue is important enough. I think you may have a hard time gaining consensus to bypass consensus. I agree with you, that "freedom from the press" will soon become a major political issue. However, I simply think that this method is not likely to yield any substantial results. (Oftem times, I find that the real changes occur during the convincing of others, so I think creating a place for some good discussion is meritted, as well as something to discuss, as I mentioned below.)

Consensus is achievable, realizing that consensus is not the same as unanimity. It's more of an overwhelming majority. Zaereth (talk) 01:50, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

why should the opinions of those who administrate or edit Wikipedia (ever??) count more than the people who stand to have a BLP made about them, against their wills, but have never edited? : Because we edit Wikipedia, and we therefore decide of it. Since everyone can edit, everyone is free to enter debate if feels so. Subjects of BLPs, especially ones who do not edit, have very little to decide about their own bio, and rightly so. Do subjects of newspaper's articles decide about what's written about them or not?

I'm reasonably sure that the average person who doesn't edit (which is most people) thinks that if they find themselves with a BLP on WP, that they can simply ask to have it removed, and it will be. - This is in utter contrast with what happen with any other website or media. If I decide to write a website about you, can you ask me to take it down just because you don't like it? What about freedom of speech?

The nearly universal reaction from those I've diabused of this notion, is shock and revulsion. - To me, to think that the subject of an article can request its deletion causes shock and revulsion, FWIW, as it would be a blatant chilling effect.

But that's irrelevant to the current discussion. Despite our differences, I would be extremly happy to see default semiprotection for BLPs, because for sure we have to get stricter protection in their cases. What is relevant is that you want this thing imposed by force and not by a discussion of the only relevant community -the one that builds the site. I strike my signature, adding a note.--Cyclopia ^talk 02:12, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

But the policy is a local one. I can't see where the foundation has stated "thou shalt not semi-protect those articles". This place runs either on dictates or consensus and I can't see a dictate coming - Peripitus (Talk) 11:39, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

What do you mean by "local"? You mean en.wiki vs some other? Yes, other sites do things en.wiki does not (like wiki.de and flagged versions) but that's a foundation autonomy issue. The foundation makes dictates all the time-- some you see coming and some you don't. You can't mess with donation-request templates, put up a pedophile userbox, or create a BLP of certain past WMF officials, only due to foundation dictates. The fact that these aren't in the pillars of Wikipedia only means that the foundation would rather not draw attention to the problem-fix, not that it was unable to fix it. I would imagine that eventually something will have to be done about BLP for everyone, in the same way. S B H arris 21:06, 4 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I would almost agree with you. The BLP problem is too important to shuffle our feet on. It's ridiculous to allow just anybody to add whatever derogatory thing to an article they wish, without any way to provide accountability. Such things can be very harmful, even if allowed to remain in the article for just a few seconds. I would be happy if Wikimedia made such a dictation, (and one specifically about the ethical treatment of children in BLPs), but I really don't foresee that happening anytime soon. Perhaps it would be quicker to simply write such a policy, say, in user space, and then try to gain consensus for it. I'm sure that would definitely be preferred by the users. Personally, I see this a being better than flagged revisions. Zaereth (talk) 00:32, 5 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FYI: Wikipedia:Village pump (proposals)#Dealing with petitions
— V = I * R (Talk • Contribs) 22:21, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

And why is this better than using flagged revisions?

Surprised noone brought this up, but it seems to me flagged revisions (or I believe it'd be called "flagged protection" in this case) would be a much better solution, and indeed the 'implementation' that most people seemed to agree on for it. While I'm not disagreeing for the want for this in spirit, it just seems to me that FRs would, contrary to some people's odd beliefs, be much more in the WP-spirit, as it'd still allow ANYONE to edit, while keeping off the VISIBLE vandalism better than semi-protection would. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ (talk) 14:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Except that this would be one ONE-BLP-AT-A-TIME (groan) and there are 175 new BLPs created each and every day. Who's going to read them, and who's going to flag the 20 bad ones? We can't get them deleted HERE. The whole idea of semi-protection is already is agains the "spirit of the Wiki" if by that you think anybody should be able to edit without any accountability or any password, from any gmail account, as a drive-by. The very existance of sprotection ANYWHERE is proof that the idea is not antithetical to the community. In for a penny, in for a pound. Let's use this tool. S B H arris 22:27, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The Wikipedia:Flagged protection and patrolled revisions proposal is a bit more complex than one BLP at a time, not least because all BLPs would at least be protected by patrolled revisions. Whilst as for the new BLPs, New Page patrol is already reading them all and speedy deleting a lot more than twenty new BLPs every day. Ϣere SpielChequers 14:35, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Why not seek consensus for change?

I'm inclined to support increased use of semi-protection for BLPs, and if this was an RFC to get the community to support this then I'd watch the early discussion, and if no-one produced arguments against this that I found compelling I would support the change. But this petition seems to be ignoring the possibility of getting community support for this and instead is going straight for a foundation override. I think that's unhealthy, corrosive to the functioning of the community and I hope the foundation has the good sense to respond to this petition by asking what recent community decision is this petition appealing against? Ϣere SpielChequers 19:46, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Due to the size of this project, you won't get "community support" (more than a 70% positive vote) for ANY change, with a large enough vote to sample the community (400 votes, perhaps). NOT ANY. Those days are as gone as the idea of a president getting > 70% of the popular vote in an election. It will never happen again. Nixon got 49 states in 1972 but polled only 60%. Reagan got 49 in 1984 but polled only 58%. No consensus possible on a large scale in politics, no large scale consensus possible on WP.S B H arris 22:30, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not convinced that we can no longer get consensus based change, but if I was persuaded that Consensus was no longer possible then the next logical step would be to move to majority decision rather than appeals to the foundation. However I'm pretty sure that hasn't even been a recent attempt to persuade the community to make this change, and consensus based changes are still possible here. To give two recent examples, this was the discussion less than a year ago to implement wp:Autoreviewer; and more pertinently to BLPs Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DASHBot 3 was the discussion that authorised DASHBot, one of the biggest initiatives to improve BLPs since I started editing. Ϣere SpielChequers 22:55, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Moving to a system of majority votes would be great. How do you propose we get consensus for that? Steve Smith (talk) 23:00, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Well as I said I'm not yet convinced that we should make that change, but if you are I would suggest you put your case at the village pump. Ϣere SpielChequers 23:32, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

You are kidding me, yes? How many people were involved in the "consensus" discussion to authorize DASHBot? Count them, please. S B H arris 22:59, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

5 at wt:BLP then 16 at Bot requests (inc 2 opposes) and 4 at Wikipedia:Bots/Requests for approval/DASHBot 3. Allowing for dupes about twenty editors, of whom only two could be described as opposes. Ϣere SpielChequers 23:28, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Fine, but please note that I'm talking about votes of 400 people and more. We all know it's possible to get concensus, as defined by 70-80% of the vote, when people are allowed to vote for all alternatives, in groups of 20 people. Try to do it on a WP-sized project you'll have "I'm for A!" and "I'm for A sub1" and "No, that's silly, B is a better way" and "No, A and B are clearly against the spirit of the Wiki!" and "Oppose, just because I dont' feel good..." and "Huh, why are we bothering about any of this...?" S B H arris 02:21, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

The two examples I gave were both on EN Wiki, but I suspect they only got relatively low participation because there were few objections and other potential supporters saw no need to pile on. I'd agree that anything sufficiently controversial that it gets 400 participants is unlikely to get a consensus - but as with the current BLP RFC there may be many ideas raised that individually get consensus even if some matters remain contentious and unresolved. I believe the community is in the process of drifting by default to majority decision where the status quo is itself clearly unacceptable to a majority; I consider that this is what in effect is happening over flagged revisions and I would hope that we could get a consensus for a new policy of "Where there is consensus that a change is needed, but there is no consensus as to which of several alternate changes to make, then we should implement the alternative that comes closest to consensus rather than maintain the status quo". Ϣere SpielChequers 13:40, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

FYI

Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Dealing_with_Petitions Ikip 05:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Alternative: problem solved in 6 hours

Also would anyone support, within 6 hours of unreferenced BLP creation:

moving unreferenced BLP to a wikiproject page,
deleting the article in main space,
mentioning in the deletion reason why it was deleted and where it was moved, and
adding a simple template which has a tag and also notifies the respective wikiproject(s)?

Thoughts? Ikip 05:09, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose

Moved from main page

This goes against the spirit of wiki. Either let us edit them, or just flat out delete them. This proposal will make no one happy. PeterbrownDancin (talk) 19:24, 31 January 2010 (UTC)[reply]
I'm concerned that moving such articles into a separate space not only loses the collaborative editing of being in mainspace, and the benefits of being able to click on what links here and thereby find references and other material that can be used. But it also leaves them on the web where they can still be used for cyber bullying et al if that is what they were created for. By all means add {{noindex}} and put them in a category that brings them to the attention of some sort of clean up squad, but I see no benefit to moving them out of article space - except of course for pages that really can be turned into someone's userpage or testpages that can be moved to become a users sandbox. Ϣere SpielChequers 14:24, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]
Let's have a debate leading to consensus, not a petition where only those on one side can state their views. Certes (talk) 23:43, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Note

Ckatz (Moving "Oppose" section to talk page; this is a petition, not a vote.) The fact that it's a petition and not a discussion might be a problem: Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Dealing with Petitions. Esecially if something like this is going to be in project space, you might need to be open to having an oppose section on the main page, IMO. Equazcion ^(talk) 06:01, 1 Feb 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point. Perhaps the page should be renamed Wikipedia:BLP semiprotection proposal and have support and oppose sections to stay within WP guidelines.--JayJasper (talk) 06:11, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Speaking for myself, I certainly don't have any objection to the idea of "oppose" space. However, the document as it now exists is a petition, and changing it to a full discussion after the fact is problematic (hence the move of the comment to the talk page). Instead, perhaps a new page should be opened. Thoughts? --Ckatz^chat _spy 06:24, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

As I said in my comments at VPP, I think the idea of using a petition to affect an ongoing debate seems contrary to the wiki spirit. I'd like to see both support and oppose sections on this page (the main page); or, since this discussion is already ongoing elsewhere, the page should be deleted. Petitions to affect a policy change are basically not helpful. The page with "Look how many people support this" will then get countered by the page with "Look how many people are against this", and that doesn't get us any closer to consensus. We don't need anything more to help debates along than a discussion where all sides can present their views and interact with each other to reach a conclusion. Petitions only serve to "apply pressure", and I really think that's counter-productive. Equazcion ^(talk) 06:33, 1 Feb 2010 (UTC)

As the petition creator, I actually don't mind where the opposes go, either on the mainpage or here. I can remove the opposes before it is submitted, or leave simple opposes on the petition. What I can't include is other ideas or modifications. Meanwhile by all means, put your thoughts here where they serve to advance the debate or give people reasons not to support. Just be sure if you support it, to get your name in the "support" column.

And note how this is going. One of the real problems of doing anything on WP is that it's a herd of cats all going in different directions. I could have a petition to praise the flag, motherhood, and apple pie, and I'd get opposes from people who don't think overt patriotism shouldn't be public, from supporters of fathers' rights, from promoters of other fruits, and finally from super-supporters of the American Diabetes Association. I am beginning to believe, and have stated above, that on any large scale project requiring a few hundred votes out of the ~150,000 active editors (defined as editing within the last 30 days) that it is impossible to get any policy change which garners even 70%. No matter what it is. Wikipedia is thus effectively paralyzed to consensus amoung its editors for any policy decision. All that is left as a mechanism for policy change is as the WMF board members come to consensus among themselves (as a far smaller group). Which is what this petition aims to help along. But the paralysis is actually a worse problem than BLP. I leave it to you-all. But you should realize that place is screwed up, bigtime. Simple democracy does not scale, and never has. WP has long outgrown the model of governance it started with. S B H arris 06:38, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

If we're to turn to petitions as an alternative to consensus, you end up with the supporters submitting their list and the opposers submitting theirs. It then effectively becomes a straight vote, and you'll actually have more democracy than there is now. I don't see that as solving or even improving the situation. Equazcion ^(talk) 06:43, 1 Feb 2010 (UTC)

The nature of petitions in general, and the BLP problem in particular

(I have posted the below to the Village Pump, in response to some people there who are advancing the idea that petitions are by nature "evil.")

When Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell together signed one of the first petitions (open letters) to the world calling for nuclear arms treaty talks (the Russell-Einstein Manifesto), they were doing it in full knowledge that they were trying to use their own reputations as thinkers (10 of 11 signatories were Nobel prize winners) to advance their opinions over what they would obtain if they merely went to the polls and voted along with millions of other people who knew less about the issues. That is the nature of petitions. They are NOT “mini-polls” where one side is left out. They carry more information than numbers—they carry the weight of the reputations and social status of the people who sign them.

The importance of such petitions was so evident to the founding fathers of the US, that they included in the first amendment the right of the people “to petition the Government for redress of grievances.” Why was this important? Why couldn’t “the people” just vote the government out of office, if they didn’t like the way they were doing the job? The founders knew that there were times when a government could be deadlocked, but continue to move if small committees could decide on ideas put before them by virtue of their being supported by well-known and well-respected members of the community. Such things are a type of impromptu lobbying, but done by thinkers, not money interests, and not simply by weight of numbers on a plebiscite/referendum.

As I have commented on the TALK page of the BLP sprotection petition, I think that the governance structure of Wikipedia has long been broken. This is not surprising, as it is built on a model of decision making (small-group “consensus”) which never scales well. And no, it doesn’t scale well on WP, either. If we define “consensus” as a supermajority of 70%, it can sometimes be garnered on questions that essentially have only binary answers (an RfA, for example, with carefully self-chosen voters) but they don’t work well for complex problems in which there are as many ideas as voters, and the entire community is invited to vote. This is why all democratic countries are republics, also called representative democracies. None work either by direct democracy, or else by what WP calls “consensus.” Nor does WP make important decisions by this method—rather it runs on a vote of the Board of Directors of WMF, which is a very small group. And one which does not vote uniformly, either.

The US does not elect its leaders by consensus or yes/no supermajority (although Cuba supposedly does—a fact I recommend to those who think Wikipedia has stumbled upon the next advance in political theory). Even the second term victories of presidents Nixon and Reagan (49 states to 1 in both cases) had less than 61% of the popular vote. On more complex issues, such as health care for the last 20 years in the US (to take an example), the system can be effectively paralyzed by the numbers of people with ideas for solutions, none of which can garner consensus or even a supermajority. Thus, even with broad agreement that something must be done about the problem, nothing has been done about the problem (which continues to grow).

If the US republic system can be nearly busted for complex problems, WP is even more busted. The present BLP fiasco, in which 175 new BLPs on mostly-unknown people are created each day with nobody to read them, is an example. The public knows this is a problem, but WP cannot even begin to agree about what to do about the problem. This proves that the system does not work, for BLP is a very serious moral and ethical problem—perhaps the most pressing that WP faces.

The present petition to semi-protect BLPs so that only name users (4 days, 10 edits) can change them, is very modest. And yet, it has not been able to be acted upon by the WP community. The present petition aims to use the reputations of its signers to get this problem before the WMF board, which is small enough that it may be able to reach some type of consensus to take at least this much action (I hope some kind of opt-out clause can also be eventually added). So far, the petition has been signed by a steward, a former arbitrator, and one member of the WMF board. I hope to gather more influential signatures.

Does this bypass the “community”? Who is the community? I believe where BLP is concerned, the stakeholders extend far beyond WP’s active editors, to the entire population of people who stand to find themselves one-day subjects (or victims) of BLPs.

These people are bypassed already. Nothing WP editors can do will change that. The WMF board, however, can change it. And should.S B H arris 08:00, 1 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Hello there! Thanks for that summary. It is certainly well thought-out and contains many intriguing points to consider. I have two comments:

Per the comments in previous sections, I must agree that this seems like an attempt to shift toward a "direct-democracy" style governance of the project. Is this really beneficial? Even if you could convince 51% of the active editing community to support a certain plan, is it to the benefit of the project that it is implemented with such slim support levels. Ultimately you are correct to an extent - the WMF Board, like the en.wiki Arbitration Committee, is primarily elected in an actual vote. Thus the majority opinion will arguably prevail in the end. However, restraint on the part of the WMF is a fundamental principle that is not worth casting aside. If the WMF took a more consensus-limiting direct role in governing the project, that would indicate a major shift in the typical power structure. I and others would argue that such is not beneficial.
From the petition: "...to use IP-editing, especially from non-paid services, such as gmail..." - what does that mean? What does an email service have to do with IP editing? Are you proposing some sort of super-semi-protection that only allows editing with a non-free e-mail address? Is the goal to become more like Citizendium?

Like I said, I do appreciate your sincerity! — James F Kalmar 20:55, 3 February 2010 (UTC)[reply]