Eduzendium Curriculum Organization

[Stephen Ewen]

Matt, I've had enough water and twisting of my intentions for now.

[Larry Sanger]

Yes, Steve, you've made this page unreadable.  Please put your contributions back.  Nobody is "twisting your intentions."  I am merely stating a principle, which is perfectly reasonable, and which I believe you agree with.

Let me clarify.  Steve, you've made some useful suggestions on the topic raised.  It would be a shame not to see them and (dare I add? I dare, though I know it might upset you) I don't think anyone has the right to remove his contributions if other people have replied to them.  Once others have engaged with you, the discussion has value because of the whole collection of comments.  So, for that reason, your comments in a meaningful sense are the community's as a whole--so they really aren't yours to remove.  Is that reasonable?

Anyway, my comment is not directed at you specifically, Steve.  As you know, I am often weighing in on various discussions to state general principles that I think people are in danger of insufficiently bearing in mind.  This sometimes upsets people, which I never like to do, but it is still absolutely essential to my role as Editor-in-Chief: it's how I help ensure that we are in fact following our policies (decisions, etc.).  In this particular case, I merely noticed that you seemed to be moving toward decisions without input from the main stakeholders when, just in the last few weeks, they had come together to work quite a bit on Eduzendium.  I knew that they would want input on the particular questions you were discussing.  I understand, of course, that you weren't claiming to be able to make the decisions singlehandedly.  I'm not accusing you of any such thing.  But from long experience I know how these things can go.  In a collaborative, open project, if someone suggests X, and no one objects, and people feel free to start acting on X, then X is de facto adopted.  That is a healthy practice and the only way I would want to change it is by making sure that people who are proposing, and de facto adopting, new policies be very strict about alerting the people--early on--who have the official authority in the system for overseeing the adoption of the policies.

If this is all obvious to you, Steve, I'm glad.  Then we have nothing to argue about, and you certainly do not have to regard yourself as having been insulted or having had your intentions twisted.  It's just another instance of me stating some obvious principles--just to make sure everyone is aware of them.  That's all.

[Stephen Ewen]

I replied privately.

[Larry Sanger]

I haven't received a private reply, if you're referring to me, Steve...this could be a technical glitch.  I think our CZ mail accounts have been having problems lately.

[Stephen Ewen]

Re-sent to Larry.

BTW, there is apparently no function to restore comments.  I've looked and looked.  I tried to restore two of the comments, the removal of which may make this thread harder to follow.  I do apologize for that, folks.

I'm more than happy to collaborate (as was going on here and starting to rev up even more) but feel that what was implied in what later happened is that every step must be submitted, processed, rubber-stamped, and certified, even in light of obvious and urgent need (every day the clean up work on the wiki has been growing by inaction).  That smacks of micromanagement because it makes competent people feel they lack competence (regarding these seven easy items, which exact order do you want me to place them in, sir?), and diminishes the freedom people must feel to robustly work together to get a job done.  So that's why I pulled out of this thread. 

If the discussion reboots I may jump back in. 

[Larry Sanger]

Well, Steve, you were simply wrong to think that I was saying that every item must be rubber-stamped.  Did I say that?  Did I in the slightest way imply it?  Of course not.  I won't quote what I did say, since it is all above, and since it is perfectly obvious that it does not imply the sort of caricature you are portraying.

On the one hand, I would like to praise and encourage the taking of initiative.  We need a lot more of that in this project, and I am glad that I've seen more of it, from various people, in the last month or so.  On the other hand, it is important that we all recognize when the work we're doing has long-range consequences, that we alert others to what we're doing.

In particular, if there is a person who is specially commissioned by CZ to lead an initiative (or group), you simply must not leave that person "out of the loop."  I realize entirely that this discussion happened out in the open, and anyone could follow what's going on here.  But not everyone would know to look here, of course, because not all the stakeholders are daily careful readers of these Forums.  And even if they did realize that you had some discussion going on, they might not realize that it's important, or that you were doing anything other than merely theorizing.  In other words, they might not realize that you are taking up issues that they might, not necessarily would, if properly informed, want to participate in with great interest.  Hence the "other hand" above.

This is different from how Wikipedia was developed, I'd like to point out.  On Wikipedia, anyone could propose a policy and, if it got enough general/vague support, it became (sorta kinda semi) official.  CZ is different; we want our rules to be clearer.  In order to have clearer rules, we have to have clearer ways of establishing rules.  This means, in turn, that we actually empower different bodies and different people with the task of making and interpreting rules.  Not to fully clue those people in to what you're doing, sometimes (no, not always), is a move toward the vague Wikipedia method of making rules, standards, and processes.

What we really need, and I would appreciate it (really!) if someone took the lead on this, is if we had a page and method whereby people could make and announce serious proposals.  All persons in authority are REQUIRED to monitor this.  Then different groups (such as the Editorial Council, the Constabulary, Eduzendium, etc.) are specifically alerted, as necessary, depending on the nature of the proposal.

I suspect we need to start a new thread.  This one has been shuttered by meta-discussion.  By the way, no "Eduzendium Curriculum Organization" properly so called exists, as far as I know...

[Stephen Ewen]

Did I in the slightest way imply it? 

Of course SO.  But I believe the record makes that perfectly obvious such that we can call this a draw. 

[Larry Sanger]

"Such that we can call this is a draw"?  What, do you think we're playing a game, Steve?  We're not, and we're not competing.  I am speaking as Editor-in-Chief and I'm informing you of my expectations.  There are no winners or losers in such an activity.

Sorry, Steve, but you just misunderstood what I wrote.  I did absolutely not mean, and can't reasonably be taken to imply, that everything has to be rubber-stamped.  Really, why think that?  Do I make a habit of asking that absolutely everything be approved, that no one can ever start anything without some oversight from someone?  No, of course not.

In this case, however, we need to make sure that the leaders of the Eduzendium project are in the loop about new repeatable things like categories, templates, procedures, rules, etc., that affect the project in their care.  I believe we agree about this case now.  Over and out.