This page is currently inactive and is retained for historical reference. Either the page is no longer relevant or consensus on its purpose has become unclear. To revive discussion, seek broader input via a forum such as the village pump.
This page is maintained by Wikiproject Community Facilitation. It is designed to be a central directory of information about the major issues before the Wikipedia community. Each issue has its own separate page. Everyone is welcome to edit these pages.
Problems with scaling consensus, encouraging broad community involvement, the status quo vs. major changes to policy, groupthink, strategic planning, making the process clear and transparent.
Content dispute resolution: (hundreds of variations on this theme have been discussed - worth digging up. how can we manage these disputes more effectively? how does the current system end up in gridlock? does facilitation help? meditation? medication?)
Arguing over vague policies. Editors trying to alter policies to give them an advantage in content disputes. Editors controlling policy pages to keep "their" version intact, while ignoring discussions or consensus. Policy changes by persistent small groups. Vague policies. How can the clarity of policies be assessed? cleaned up? what are the dangers of unclear policies? is clarity a learnable skill we can all practice? Thoughts on visualization and page layout.
Term lengths, holding other positions, retention of privileges after resignation or end of terms, public perception, impeachment mechanisms. ArbCom scope -- should it have responsibilities beyond arbitrating disputes? Is a different governance body needed? The role of think-tanks and wikiprojects. When are committees helpful? which current committees are active and useful? more/less, and what are alternatives to the committee model? Standards for committee transparency? should elected officials have extra accountability/responsibility? Short and long-term dangers; implication for closed v. open channels
Is there a place for humor in articles? in the project or user namespaces? some active groups of pages are deleted en masse. are contributors who want to add to humorous pages hurting the project, and if so can their other contributions be saved or must they be run off?
How much freedom should people have over what is in their userspace? Can editors work on articles in userspace that might be inappropriate once finished? Can they include jokes? personal photos? Should WP:Userboxes be banned? What forms of social networking are appropriate?
Is mediation effective? How can more people be engaged with medcom? Incivility -- how do we deal with incivil trolls and newbies? Incivil admins and long-time users? Bans and blocks -- there is perennial drama surrounding bannings. Are there ways to reduce this? Sandboxing, less aggressive engagement, less noisy appeal mechanisms? should blocks be done punitively?
Instant rating system, good article icon. Featured content of various types, and methods of getting there. Article rating by groups, for WP 1.0. Similar "A+" methods used on de:wp.
Software changes? (use forum software, run LiquidThreads, format formally). how can talk pages be improved? should they be more prominently linked from articles? Are there easier ways to engage Wikipedia users.
What new features need to be added. How do we test out new variations on features, assess changes, try different things without annoying everyone?) New feature design and planning, interaction with developers.
Watching features (count people watching a page - good or bad? set up specialpages that help track little-watched or overwatched pages? other stats. distributed rc patrol so each new change is seen by N people?
The project doesn't have the resources to monitor or maintain all of the biographies of living people. Should we measure the impacts. How does Rodovid handle this? [1]
Clarity and efficiency for Reform#Can our deletion policy be clearer.2C and the process more efficient? Can we be more efficient? Speedy deletion issues: (which speedy policies cause trouble? in what cases? how can the process for improving those policies be improved? should there be time limits on how speedies can be tagged/carried out? are there places where we could use a quarantine that allows original submitters to see their work and how it's flagged but hide it from others?
Making AfD less obnoxious, alternatives to AFD for improving articles. Deciding whether to merge, turn into a section, redirect, cleanup, research, or delete. Broadening focus beyond just deciding whether to delete: How to delete properly - whether to save talk pages, how to preserve anything salvageable, how to notify contributors without driving them away.
Page names may need renaming to correspond to the concise definition that has been created. New goals:
Brainstorm alternative solutions, evaluate them, document concerns
Adapt proposals to address concerns, develop plans to test community consensus
Issues nearing community consensus
Well defined issues should have a plan to test community consensus. Issues below are in the process of implementing that plan.
Resolved and archived issues
Resolved issues are listed below. Unsuccessfully resolved issues can be refactored and the process restarted at an appropriate stage. Issues so completely resolved that there is no longer community activity related to it, can be bronzed and hung on the wall as inspiration to future generations.
