Talk:Requests for comment/Wikimedia Enterprise

Concerns about not enough background given

The page describes the POV of the requester but relies on readers to go and read Wikimedia Enterprise pages and related material. This is unfair to the readers. Ата ^(talk) 20:05, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, it's not a very neutral RfC... ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 21:13, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

I have commented my concerns directly under the questions asked. I think the questions do a bad job to represent Wikimedia Enterprise and it might give participants wrong impression and thus spoil their opinions. --Base (talk) 21:52, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Hello Ата, hello Base. If the call does not meet the usual expectations, feel free to improve it. That's what a Wiki is for. The idea is just to start an important debate since this is a very new position for the foundation and the community is divided on the subject. It's better to anticipate things by the Wiki way than to see a split appear within the movement when the media gets hold of the subject and the editors are faced with a fait accompli. Don't you think? I will remove the page from my follow list and will only come back when the elections are over. Thank you for your interventions and a nice end of evening to you both. Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 23:05, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

To clarify my intentions

Here is the email in moderation that I just sent to the wikimedia-l mailing list:

(In French below)
Dear Wikimedia community,
As some of you may have noticed from my interventions during the global conversations, I am not a fan of elections. Like my compatriot David Van Reybrouck (https://www.polemia.com/contre-les-elections-de-david-van-reybrouck), I am an advocate of direct democracy and consensus, and when this is not possible, I am in favor of drawing lots for candidates with short and non-repeatable mandates.
So, you may wonder why I have proposed myself as a candidate for the current elections of new board members of the Wikimedia Foundation?
The answer is that it is for me a nice way to discover how these elections work, but also and above all, it seemed to me to be a nice opportunity to raise within our community some questions that worry me a lot.
Unfortunately, I see that my candidacy has an opposite effect than the one I hoped for. I had indeed wanted to launch a debate about the Wikimedia Enterprise project in the form of a call for comments. But this one seems to be compromised because of my lack of understanding of the project, but also because of my candidacy to the board (see : Requests for comment/Wikimedia Enterprise, Talk:Requests for comment/Wikimedia Enterprise, Meta:Requests for deletion#Requests for comment/Wikimedia Enterprise)
My approach may be clumsy and certainly original, but it starts from a good background. I want to help our movement to make good decisions at the beginning of discussions that I think are important.
I am therefore sending you this message in order to receive opinions and advice regarding this situation. I wonder indeed if it would not be useful that I withdraw my candidacy to the board of directors to be able to continue the debates that I would like to launch more serenely? It is just an idea, because I am afraid that it would complicate the voting process, which has already been postponed once. I thank you already for the help you could give to this situation.
Sincerely, Lionel Scheepmans

Chère communauté Wikimédia,
Comme certains d'entre vous l'auront peut-être remarqué lors de mes interventions durant les conversations mondiales, je ne suis pas un adepte des élections. Comme mon compatriote David Van Reybrouck (https://www.polemia.com/contre-les-elections-de-david-van-reybrouck), je suis un partisan de la démocratie directe et du consensus et quand cela n'est pas possible, je suis favorable au tirage au sort des candidats avec mandats de courtes durées et non reproductibles.
Vous vous demandez alors certainement pourquoi dans ce cas, je me suis proposé candidat pour les actuelles élections des nouveaux membres du conseil d'administration de la fondation Wikimedia ?
La réponse est que c'est pour moi une belle façon de découvrir le fonctionnement de ces élections, mais aussi et surtout, cela me semblait être une belle occasion pour soulever au sein de notre communauté des questions qui m'inquiètent beaucoup.
Malheureusement, je constate que ma candidature a un effet inverse à ce celui espéré. J'avais en effet envie de lancer un débat concernant le projet Wikimedia Enterprise sous forme d'appel à commentaires. Mais celui-ci semble compromis en raison de mon manque de compréhension du projet, mais aussi en raison de ma candidature au conseil d'administration. (Voir : Requests for comment/Wikimedia Enterprise, Talk:Requests for comment/Wikimedia Enterprise, Meta:Requests for deletion#Requests for comment/Wikimedia Enterprise).
Ma démarche est peut-être maladroite et certainement originale, mais elle part d'un bon fond. Celui d'aider notre mouvement à prendre de bonnes décisions au départ de discussions qui me semble importante.
Je vous adresse donc ce message dans le but de recevoir des avis et conseil par rapport à cette situation. Je me demande effectivement s'il ne serait pas utile que je retire ma candidature au conseil d'administration pour pouvoir poursuivre les débats que je voudrais lancer plus sereinement ? C'est juste une idée, car j'ai peur que cela complique le déroulement du scrutin qui déjà fut reporté une fois. Je vous remercie déjà pour l'aide que vous pourriez apporter à cette situation.
Bien cordialement, Lionel Scheepmans''

Sincerely again,Lionel Scheepmans ^{✉ Contact} _{French native speaker, sorry for my dysorthography} 10:16, 18 August 2021 (UTC)

Withdrawing from the election would be a rather disruptive "solution" at this point. As for this request for comments, it's not entirely clear to me what the intended benefits of launching it are (a general discussion like Talk:Wikimedia Enterprise, but more participation? comments on specific issues not discussed at the original talk page?), but at the same time it's not clear to me that it's doing any harm.

The RfC is a wiki page, so if people have issues with the first section they can help edit it (from what I can tell, a couple tweaks would suffice). More complicated is what to do about specific "proposals" (there are two currently framed as technical and philosophical question, which I'd rather describe respectively as realistic/pragmatic and unrealistic/provocative).

If you still think an RfC is useful, you could find a group of 2-3 persons with different opinions (based on current participants) to improve it and make it more balanced. As long as the RfC itself is controversial, it's best to not advertise it widely. (Is is being advertised anywhere? I see over 1000 visits in a day at some point, but they're rapidly decreasing.) If there is some sense of urgency, you could also withdraw/close/suspend the RfC and reopen it after a new version has been prepared, rather than change it in fieri. Nemo 07:08, 20 August 2021 (UTC)