Userbox policy poll Options Rating

[Lir]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Use...icy_poll#Oppose

[chalst]

It's amusing that several people seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the overwhelming support for the proposed policy that is seen as overwhelmingly bad here must be evidence for groupthink at wikipedia, and not groupthink here.

Me, I voted neutral: the policy is in the general area of a workable compromise, but it's lousily worded. I'm bothered by userboxes to the extent that they facilitate poll stacking operations, but beyond that I think that freer expression is good for wikipedia, hence moving userboxes out of template space is a good thing.

[Blu Aardvark]

It's amusing that several people seem to have arrived at the conclusion that the overwhelming support for the proposed policy that is seen as overwhelmingly bad here must be evidence for groupthink at wikipedia, and not groupthink here.

I think you are reading too much into the opinions here. I, for one, do not believe the proposed policy to be overwhelmingly bad - I voted nuetral. As for evidence of groupthink... this isn't in and of itself evidence of groupthink, true. Wikimedia's systematic flaws are. Allow me to elaborate. CommunityMayNotScale - once a community reaches a certain size or number of members, it stops functioning as a community. Wikimedia has reached this point long ago. Factions, groupthink, and cabalism is a natural response to this. When a community is forced to scale, people form their own mini-communities. This is a systematic problem, and no matter how long the elitist cabal argues about how bad factionalism is for the project, the fact remains that factions will remain. It is natural and to be expected.

When I refer to the elitist cabal, I refer to the faction that has the ear of the ArbCom, and believes themselves to be the group referred to by Raul's First Law. The elitist cabal can ignore every rule, and trample any user, in the name of "product over process". If a user attempts to bring a member of the elitist cabal through dispute revolution to ArbCom, it is (nearly) a given that the Arbitration Comittee will decide unanimously against that user (there are exceptions, of course). Want an example? Look at Lir's third case, and actually check the evidence in the "Findings of Fact" section. The evidence is incredibly weak, and nothing is presented anywhere in the case to justify a ban of a year.