Talk:Statement of Principles

Intro.

There's no need for a more perfect union - we're not fighting the British, nor wishing for power over citizens. In fact people should be free to fork and should not be killed for wanting to. The rest is in too flowery language not necessary either. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-06t09:45z

The community recognizes certain rights

Right to vanish

I've removed the thing about eright to vanish as

The term is a misnomer in that it is not a "right" or guarantee but rather a courtesy extended to valued contributors who wish to leave.

Anonymous101 10:29, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

Fleshed out

I've fleshed out some of the sections, and tried to clarify exceptions and so on.

I think, however, that the inclusion of "rights" is a poor idea. Users on free content projects are accustomed to having two rights – the right to fork, and the right to leave. In my opinion, according all users certain rights, particularly generic ones as those given, encourages rules-lawyering and an entitlement mentality. The reality is that the focus is on the content, not on the contributors, and therefore, we should not dwell on granting our users "rights", when doing this might evoke even more focus on the contributors over the content.

What do others think? Werdna 13:37, 2 September 2008 (UTC)

I agree the word "rights" is wrong here.

"To view the content of the Wikimedia projects[...]" Not everyone has internet access, it's not a right to get internet access in order to read Wikipedia.

I think "To participate in community discussions and votes, provided such contribution is done in good faith. It should be noted that opinions are sometimes weighted with the strength of arguments, rather than merely the strength of numbers. Accordingly, while contributors have a right to express their opinions, they do not have a right to have those opinions weighted equally to those of others." is good, but the rest is just rules-lawyering when the focus should be on creating a libre encyclopedia. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-06t09:52z

+1. I too dislike the wording in regards to "rights". Another thing is that voting is considered a bad idea in many projects, accordingly putting stuff about votes in a document such as this is also a bad idea. People should have the right to participate i discussions if they do so in a constructing manner, nobody should have the right to vote about stuff, so I think it's best to remove that word all together. MiCkE 09:30, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

The community recognizes certain privileges.

Excellent as of 2008-09-02t13:34:22z. -- Jeandré, 2008-09-06t09:54z

The community recognizes certain responsibilities.

Good as of 2008-09-02t13:34:22z except for the word "ordained". -- Jeandré, 2008-09-06t09:57z

Other comments

Neat

Quite an interesting page, thanks to Thunderhead for starting this. Could be fleshed out a bit further, IMO. Cirt (talk) 23:22, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Thanks - I'm hoping that the community will get involved. I know there was some discussion about this earlier on foundation-l. Thunderhead 23:52, 1 September 2008 (UTC)

Symmetry

• If someone has a right, someone else must have an obligation, who or what organisation has the obligattion to ensure the rights that is mentioned?
• If someone has a privilige someone else must grant this privilige, who?
• If someone has a responsibility, someone else must follow up this is lived up to, who?

I beleive it is unrelasitic to have the ambitions to have this page as an overall Principle, if this counterpart (someone else) is not well deifined. I also know that this is organized very different on different wikipedia projects. Just one example To fair and speedy arbitration and dispute resolution - given by whom? The WMF, A local Chapter, A senior group on the project, an appointed arbitory group? Appointed arbitory groups only exist on a very few project and of cource it would be unrealistic to demand this to exist on all projects, where there can be as little as a few handful users. Anders Wennersten 09:23, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

This page seems to be an attempt to play united nations... As we all know WP is not a democratic experiment. I fail to see the use of this page. /Grillo 11:46, 7 September 2008 (UTC)

I certainly do not like this page. We already have a goal (spread the free knowledge, through encyclopedia writing, dictionary making, photographing etc.), we do not need rules, because they should be ignored if they prevent our goal, whilst "statement of principles" seem to be some kind of constitution which should never be ignored. Of course, they should be ignored if they prevent us from spreading the free knowledge. Leo Johannes 13:54, 8 September 2008 (UTC)

Is this a good idea?

Is this a good idea? I'm not sure, but it wouldn't seem like it.

For one thing, in looking this over, I'm reminded of Wikipedia:en:WP:BURO.

For another, I don't think that this page should be attempting to determine community "rights/priviledges/responsibilities/etc".

Just like any online community website, the "community" of editors has whatever is "granted/allowed" by whoever "owns/manages" the site(s). And those are already laid out at Foundation issues.

Anyway, further thoughts/discussion welcome. - Jc37 11:39, 22 September 2008 (UTC)

The first paragraph sounds pompous and ridiculous

Gurch 19:17, 24 September 2008 (UTC)