User talk:Brews ohare/Wikipedia: Formal organization

Prologue

I have listed Matthews' book among some others here. It has a Google preview here. Some of the facts about WP administration can be found in these books, but not all. It is perfectly clear from the cited links in the books themselves that the sources of their information are WP links, just as used in this proposal. These books provide no alternative sources for the info in these WP links, as that would serve no purpose: WP is the best source for the description of WP's formal organization.

The way Wikipedia is structured, that is, its organizational offices, officers, and their various duties and authorities, are described best in WP sources, as WP itself naturally provides its own basis for determining its own organization. It hardly seems inappropriate for a discussion of this structure to use the documents the organization uses to delineate its own structure. The straightforward itemization of facts about organization leaves no room for conjecture, opinion, or editorializing. Of course errors and poor exposition are possible, but elimination of bad writing is not the objective of WP:Primary. Brews ohare (talk) 17:54, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

As noted here: Wikipedia may be cited with caution as a primary source of information on itself, such as in articles about itself. Brews ohare (talk) 22:36, 6 December 2011 (UTC)

Comments

• Consensus must exceed 85%, but final judgment is one of Bureaucrat discretion. - You're misinterpreting that source. 85% is only for B appointments, and it doesn't say "must", but "somewhere around". For A's, the much more common case, 70-80% is the more common threshold.
• "are well described"- I agree with the previous commenter, no need for "well". Imagine "are poorly described" ... :-)
• "supervised by existing Bureaucrats" - as opposed to what, non-existing Bureaucrats?
• they will impose, bans and blocks - actually arbs generally delegate that task to admins, often arbcom clerks. Like the supreme court, others enforce their decisions.
• A ban requires "consensus", and is a formal warning without removal of the ability to edit, - no, a ban is a removal of the ability to edit, in the sense that removal of a driver's license is a removal of the ability to drive. A block is merely the removal of the car keys. If someone is drunk, you take away their car keys - taking away their driver's license won't help. But a court takes away the license, not the car keys.
• can authorize users to irreversibly delete certain material, for example, material considered defamatory,[18] - and 18 is a link to Oversight. First, that implies that arbcom authorizes specific oversight instances. That's not so, in general once someone has the oversight power, they have the discretion to use it. Second, the implication seems to be that any user can oversight material, which isn't so. An oversighter is a technical flag, just like administrator. Third, the important thing about oversight isn't that the deletion is irreversible (after all, it can always be recreated) but that it isn't visible in the logs to normal users. I'd write something like: Arbcom can give specific users the ability to remove deleted edits from the revision history, for example, material considered defamatory.[18]

--GRuban (talk) 12:13, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Thanks again GRuban: I've made changes in response to your comments above.

• I replaced 85% with ~85%; this threshold is mentioned in the section on Bureaucrats and the ~70% threshold is mentioned inthe section on Administrators.
• I removed "well" in "well described"; I'd made that change before, but somehow it got lost.
• Removed "existing": that was silly.
• I regard the distinction between "imposing" a penalty and "delegating" the execution to a hatchet-man as moot.
• I get the distinction, and modified the description.
• Adopted your wording.

Thanks for your help. Brews ohare (talk) 16:36, 7 December 2011 (UTC)

Two questions

1. Does the article cover solely en:, and if not should this section be more carefully worded.
2. "owned and operated" is there a better way to phrase this? The project is hosted by WMF, and they own the logo and domain names. Without being a starry eyed romantic, Wikipedia sort of belongs to everyone - in that it's forkable, the community could decide to decamp to another non-profit (or even for profit) host or hosts. Rich Farmbrough, 15:27, 8 December 2011 (UTC).
   

Rich: Thanks for contributing.

• I have drawn all my information from the English WP and know nothing about the others. I have added an introductory disclaimer.
• This wording is a verbatim quote from Wikimedia. I've clarified that it refers to Wikimedia itself, not directly to WP. I'd say the ability of WP to decamp is conjectural. The Wikimedia Board of Trustees would have the ultimate say-so about such a request, and I'd doubt (based upon nothing) that they would grant the request. The problems with withdrawal by wikis formed under Wikia have led to the Anti-Wikia Alliance, but Wikia is a somewhat separate organization. Brews ohare (talk) 16:09, 8 December 2011 (UTC)

Completely separate, but the principle is the same. And as you doubtless know the Spanish Wikipedia did fork, and the German Wikipedia seriously discussed it over Image Filter, en:Wikinews has pretty much forked/left (I haven't kept up). Rich Farmbrough, 20:41, 8 December 2011 (UTC).