Talk:Requests for comment/Meta Community

←historical pages	Talk:Requests for comment/Meta Community
Early thoughts about the existance of a Meta-Wiki community.

Thread from Meta:Babel

Who is the Meta "community", singular? There doesn't appear to be one. There are various separate groups who use it for various purposes, but there doesn't seem to be a coherent thing. When people on RFA talk about "the meta community", what do they mean? (And I don't mean a generic definition of what a wiki community constitutes - I mean what and who this alleged single coherent social unit is and isn't.) - David Gerard 18:10, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I think it's already been pretty much agreed that we don't have a strong singular community. Of course, for any wiki, there will be sub-communities with their own interests, but for overarching issues, a global consensus is needed, and we don't seem to have that. Multilingualism and diverse goals don't help with this objective. Ambush Commander 21:23, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

/me watches tumbleweeds blow past

The lack of any response here suggests this page should be marked "historical" as well. If this is the place for discussion on meta, where is everybody? - David Gerard 18:16, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

zzzz... Linuxbeak 18:34, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

You can actually track this wiki through Special:Recentchanges. That's how sleepy things are. Most of the work nowadays has to do with overhaul meta. Ambush Commander 21:32, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

Its an interesting question - I basically agree with Ambush, although if I had to guess that community (if there was one) would be a group of the stewards (Sj, Aphaia, Anthere, Angela, etc.), some admins (M7, Korg, a few others) and a few misc. users. So its not like a huge one and generally AFAIK there arn't usually intense policy discussions (or discussions in general :)), and usually its just decided/updated by a steward like Sj or pos. another admin, for example. Someone once compared Meta to MeatBall and I think that is a great comparison of the type of (disconobulated?) community Meta has. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 22:04, 30 March 2006 (UTC)

The impression I get is it's the stewards' personal wiki and they repel all boarders. This needs to be made clearer: that Meta is not what it is purported to be - David Gerard 12:46, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

This edit [1] in particular is a very bad sign of the incumbents' attitude to outsiders - David Gerard 16:35, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

That's a fairly accurate impression. In terms of Bookofjude I wish I was a bit more welcoming myself :\. Just another star in the night ^{T | @ | C} 10:23, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

So what would you suggest be done about this attitude? A post to foundation-l on the subject might also be apposite - David Gerard 15:27, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

This wiki is not like a normal Wikimedia wiki where all the users are working on a common goal. This Wiki is like gas station with a parking, shop, restaurant and hotel. People pas but do only mostly there own business there. I am one of the first sysops of meta. I was working here on policy pages for the dutch Wikipedia. Later I only visited very infrequently here. Mostly to play sysop. With my work on Wikizine I came more here. And now also because I am steward. For the moment I am watching Meta more then my home wiki.

You can not compare this wiki with other wikis. Yes, there are regulars here. But the are here because the have wikimedia-work to do here. And the mostly are only taking care of there own thing and not about "Meta in general".--Walter 18:59, 31 March 2006 (UTC)

Could you tell Anthere and foundation-l that? She seems convinced that there is a clear single community here and that I'm simply dense for not noticing it - David Gerard 15:23, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

Je suis un membre intermiitent de cette communauté ;D Alvaro 13:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm an intermittent member of this community ;D Alvaro 13:41, 3 April 2006 (UTC)

---

Please be selective with your enwikipediathink. (Yes, I saw the en.wikipedia links on some of your user pages.) Meta has a community, though it does not have some of the traits of the English Wikipedia community. Just because we Meta-Wikimedians do not have lots of fun disputing neutral point of view and writing huge piles of guidelines and enforced policies (or do whatever Wikipedians do, knowing that I have few edits there), does not mean that we do not form a community. --Kernigh 03:52, 6 April 2006 (UTC) (warning: sockpuppet of Wikibooks:User:Kernigh, Wikisource:User:Kernigh)

"enwikipediathink"

It's interesting how strogly the norms of a community affect how members view other communities. It is natural for members of one to want to 'save' members of another from their different ways. This is a general observation, not specific to this situation, or the enwikipedians who are hurrying to work on Meta.

I think the right way to answer David's question is : what do you hope to accomplish with Meta? What kind of content would you like to see here, edited in which languages by which groups of people to what end?

To date, Meta's overarching principles have included openness to many types of content, particularly any that touches on more than one wikimedia Project, and keeping guidelines and policies simple, among other things. Walter's comment that many people are here to work on their own projects is true; but this does not preclude community or a shared sense of politeness and working-together; which this discussion has lacked. Kernigh's statement that we do form a community (and the 'we' here has little to do with stewardship, though stewards are generally part of that community) is also true.

I find telling people who believe they form a community, that they do not, awkward. On the other hand, I feel certain that there are lessons for each community to learn from the other. I hope together the existing community and the eager new editors from en: can develop something beautiful. Sj 21:29, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

A catalan-speakers wikimedia community.

Hi! I'm coming from Catalan Wikipedia. In our Village Pump we was talking about to create a space here in meta to talk all things that involves for all wikimedia projects in Catalan (Wikipedia, Wikibooks, Wiktionary, Wikiquote, and very soon Wikinews also). We was telling that it's necessary because our catalan-speaker community here is very small but also very active (7'5 milion of speakers, 23th. possition for "Viquipèdia" in number of articles, today). In fact, users who contribute in any of these projects in Catalan also contribute in Wikipedia in Catalan, but all the users that contribute in Wikipedia do not participate always in the other projects. It's often to talk subjects related with other projects in Wikipedia, including some surverys that affect other projects (i.e. the change of "Wikiquote" to "Viquidites" was started in Catalan Wikipedia) but it's not quite correct at all. So, creating a space here in meta would be a good efforth for us. --Joanot 07:32, 18 May 2006 (UTC) PD: Sorry because of my poor english.