User:Jalexander-WMF/Planet Wikimedia scope RfC

Since 2007 the Planet Wikimedia blog aggregator has run (with some technical issues) with a relatively basic inclusion criteria. Lately there has been controversy over where a specific blog should be included or not. I think this is a good time to start thinking about more concrete rules and standards for inclusion and exclusion.

Currently the scope is described as "a weblog aggregator operated by the Wikimedia Foundation, to bring together on-topic posts about Wikimedia projects, other wiki sites, the free culture movement, the "wisdom of crowds", etc. -- all from Wikimedia community members. Bloggers may "opt-in" to the blog aggregator, upon review and continued approval from the Wikimedia Meta community."

We give little description beyond that but do give some examples of what is ok (Technical Items, Constructive criticism, praise) and not ok (Off topic, copyright violations). The current dispute (both on wiki and in my email) mostly revolves around whether you can count a specific blog as constructive or if the language used is more of a problematic attack.

There are certainly other pieces that could be brought up (do we want to try to get rid of the Planet system all together, move it to a more stable system like aggregation on the WM Blog/Wordpress site etc) but those are probably best done as spinoffs if people would like to do so.