User:Lx 121/Key problems @ WMC

General Notes

• Dual-jurisdiction rule for copyright>PD - We are killing ourselves with the requirement that PD files must be PD in both the U.S.A., & their "country of origin".

This doubles the burden for including a file in wmc, & adds work for everybody involved with it. Especially for DR/discussions.

We NEED the files to be PD in our host country (i.e.: the U.S.A.), that's the only part that matters. If it's not PD in the jurisdiction where we are hosted, then we can't host the file, Q.E.D.

EVERYTHING else, as far as copyright-vs-PD is concerned, can be handled by tagging.

"This file is/may 'not be PD in... "

"This file is PD in... "

"This file was created in ____ & is/not currently PD in that jurisdiction."

etc.

It's a nice, "noble" idea to have only files that are "truly free"; BUT, even if the file is PD in both the U.S.A. & its "country of origin", that STILL leaves the rest of the world, which is divided into something over 250 different jurisdictions, as of 2014.

• Adminship - We are doing it wrong; we have the process ass-backwards.

We make it "hard" for people to become admins, & we make it "hard" to remove admins when they make bad decisions.

What we should do, is make it easy for any established user with a good work record to become an admin, & then make it easy to de-admin them, when they screw up.

We can always re-admin them if/when they show improvement.

Repeat, as necessary.

INSTEAD

What we have is a "popularity contest", to become admins.

"Adminship" becomes a jealously guarded privilege & title.

De-adminning someone becomes a big deal; hard to do, & a huge "humiliation" for the person de-adminned.

MEANWHILE, we pass out blocks & bans with merry abandon, like poisoned candy, to large numbers of "ordinary" users, including MANY with LONG histories of useful, productive work on the project.

Banning/blocking someone should not be done lightly in any case, but it is beyond ABSURD, when you compare the casual blocks (& threats thereof) tossed around, by admins, (mostly) @ non-admins, with the massive difficulty involved in sanctioning an admin with a track record of bad decisions.

Especially if the admin in question has a lot of friends...

• Declining numbers of new/active editors @ WM projects (in general) - see above, re: adminship. also: overcomplicated rules, badly(/mis) administered, including unclear procedures & poor "due process".

all of which feeds into general psych "hostility towards newcomers/strangers", "cliqueishness" (the tendency to form closed groups of like-minded people, with narrowly-defined objectives),

"general inertia", especially directed towards new users "we don't do things that way here, because... we don't do things that way here.

(probably MUCH worse @ wp/en)

--change & innovation are not "bad things", & if current practices are not backed up by valid reasoning, or if circumstances have changed, then its current practices that should be superseded, NOT the innovators who should be "stopped".