Talk:Society Gardens

what does "values longevity" mean in this context? --JWSchmidt 03:22, 7 Dec 2005 (UTC)


 * just intended to mean values not just popularity, which may be temporary, but also the characteristic of being, approaching or tending towards long lasting, durable, sustained Philralph 15:13, 8 Dec 2005 (UTC)

Concerns re interpretation of consensus
Specifically following on from note left re unprotecting Main Page on sca wiki.

Main reasons why sca main page currenlty protected (second obviously the more worrying)
 * 1) spam, e.g. happening soon after previous unprotections
 * 2) aggressive editing suggesting something along the lines of views in support of sustainability should be wiped of the face of the earth

Having spent most days of the last 15 months building up the sca wiki (and from memory only two pages are protected - another one which seemed to get persistenty spammed) have concerns re this.

Specifically most wikicities users contribute to the less serious subject wikis. Would some sort of consensus amonst the users and contributers to the more serious subject wikis count for nothing? Do we have to open the more serious subject wikis to what amounts to some sort of lowest common denominator, (so that wikicities can be totally about frivoulous stuff and serious stuff has no place here) and so have I been completey wasting my time over the last 15 months?

Urgent clarification please!

As might be seen from reading a little higher up on the talk page for sca wiki main page there are redesign plans which might present opportunity for unprotecting but need to know as a matter of urgency whether sca community for example (even though there are very few active contributors) can make decisions based on thier own consensus and not have a wider consensus imposed on them. (?)

notice that Wikipedia, Commons, Wikinews and Wikiquote (etc?) all seem to have protected Main pages or community portals {etc?} which seemingly contradicts advice / (instructions?) we're being given here (?) Philralph 22:06, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Also if someone from central wikicites opens up a page, in all probability it would seem that it wouldn't be them that ends up clearing up any problems, (but that wikis own community, or most active user or users) which doesn't seem as fair or responsible as I kind of thought the ethics of this place was (?)Philralph 22:35, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Of course the suggestion isn't that you have to open the Main Page up to any sort of garbage people want to put on it.


 * The English-language Wikipedia's main page wasn't fully protected until roughly 1 year ago; it was constructed with a collection of templates that were themselves editable by anyone, and it wasn't until it started getting serious organized vandalism attempts that it was finally closed off. By that time there were hundreds of thousands of srticles and tens of thousands of active usere. The other English-language projects are by association so high-visibility that they too are attractive targets for vandalism. However, it was several years before this happened, and Wikipedia is by no means a frivolous project, either! Even still many of the smaller-language Wikipedias where they are not such attractive targets do not have their main pages protected, including the Nynorsk, Estonian, Irish Gaelic, and Scottish Gaelic Wikipedias, which are all more concerned about attracting new contributors than making sure the front page is never edited badly.


 * You don't have to allow people to push the anti-sustainability points of view on the main page if there's a consensus that it shouldn't be there. How do you handle it when they do so on other pages in that Wikicity? There are plenty of other pages there (and it looked like a really nice resource, when I was looking through it). If someone vandalizes it, why not remove it, warn the users, and if it's necessary block the user or protect the page temporarily to stop an attack? But it seems like you have enough activity and enough good users there that someone who wants to make trouble will be stopped or reverted before too long, whichever page it is.


 * The main page is the front door of your wiki, though, and as posted there, a new contributor who sees it and finds that it isn't editable may be put off and never come back; almost all of the Wikicities projects are still small enough that we'd rather not lose anyone when reverting bad edits would also solve the problem. Does this address your concerns? Thanks, Mindspillage 23:02, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * To address your second comment, I'll be happy to add that wiki to list of wikis I keep an eye on, which include a variety of others that are known to attract spam, vandalism, and other troublesome edits. Mindspillage 23:03, 2 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I think Phil is overrreacting here. However, it is the case that the SCA user community is very small. Probably only 3 people check the site and contribute anything like regularly. So it might be a bit more vulnerable than Mindspillage thinks. I'm happy to have the page locked and the talk open, as changes to the front page should probably be discussed first anyway. (By the way, i'm not entirely sure why this discussion is taking place here.) --Tim Gray 09:13, 3 March 2006 (UTC)


 * Unanswered questions, further clarification sought


 * Hi, Mindspillsge, Thanks for your reply, and especially offer of help to keep an eye on things. Also thanks for compliments on sca21.


 * Although your reply begins to answer concerns and questions, with respect, I still feel a lot of them remain unanswered . Further clarification would be most helpful.


 * I'm sorry if I have difficulty making this clear enough but I'll try my best:. To get to the position of being able to consider this easily, one has to have trust that we are being encouraged to consider things, rather than directed to consider them (being expected to jump to fit your timeframe perhaps even) . With respect, and whatever your level of experience, and however much this might not be intended, the feeling of being dictated to, arguably, is likely to loose you many more people than anything else. I'm encouraged by the reply beginning with confirmation that this is a 'suggestion', that perhaps we do have choice, or at least chance for a say, here.


 * When I first applied for a wikicity there was a question in my mind about which consensus one means when one talks about consensus. Until now the problem hasn't arisen, but now that it has, I'd like to get it clarified if that's at all possible. One can talk about a consensus within users of a particular wikicity, but one can also talk about consensus amongst the wider community of wikicitizens (including as it will large numbers of experienced central wikicities people). So my first question is - Are there circumstances in which applying the second consensus will make smaller numbers of users in a particular wikicity feel they are being dictated to? And, again with respect although you may know a lot about wikis in general it may be the case that you don't have huge knowledge of the subject of any particular wikicity (e.g. sustainabiltiy)  and some of you may have no particular care for, or interest in the subject of a particular wiki.


 * Of course there is an argument that susceptibilty to serious and organised vandalsim is depedent on numbers of people involved. But there are also possible alternative views. One is that it is not just numbers of people involved but also the nature of the subject. Arguably there is not inconsiderable power in vested interests who may have some opposition to sustainability, or for example more serious subjects which might come into more sustainable ways of living, such as arms sales, world trade and world poverty, genetic modifciation, nuclear power, etc etc.


 * There is also an argument that the growing visibilty of wikipedia etc rubs off on smaller wikis. Even within wikipedia or wikinews, particluar subjects may attract relatively few and relatively unempowered editors (and people who are generally about creating and maintiaing open spaces, dialogue and an open (collective) mind ) ranged alongside very powerful and numerous forces who's preference is to defend the status quo, no questions asked (with all that that might imply for more subtle, and therefore more difficult to deal with, forms of vandalism). So that a rgidly applied view that it is never acceptable to protect open spaces can seem like going too far.


 * The following is going to be hopelessly badly explained, but please see it as a stab at a start. Perhaps one of my concerns is the mechanics, ( the 'how to', within wikicities central Help section) of how one defends, or argues to defend, or builds up so that it can be defended or argued for, the purposes, aims (what it is about / subject of a particluar wiki) can seem as yet relatively unclear. (I don't feel this is just about gaining experience, but about having appropriate and specific enough Help). I know the following may sound hopelessly fluffy and philsophical but there is arguably an absolutely huge consensus in the world generally for divisiveness, but that doesn't make it right or the way forward. There are arguemnts for holism as well however underresourced these may be at present. Having a space to protect and nuture this so that it has a chance to grow (and remember we are talking about 2 protected pages out of several hundred) doesn't seem to me too bad a thing.


 * Your note has prompted more questions than this I'm afraid, but perhaps that's enough for now. I'd prefer to be acknowledgng what you're saying, but still feel the need for confirmation that I'm beginning to make some of my concerns intelligible to you. Thanks again, regards Philralph 11:12, 3 March 2006 (UTC)