Resolution talk:Commissioning Recommendations from the Executive Director
Comment
This was the most controversial resolution passed in a while. It was difficult to ask for a balanced assessment of how other organizations handle collection and presentation of controversial materials, since there are varying views on what organizations are 'similar' to Wikimedia. Schools, libraries, museums, publishing houses, and individual Wikimedia Project instances each have a certain bias towards how to resolve these issues -- but they do not agree. (Different language Wikipedias will have different takes on the matter, for instance.)
The general idea of having outside research done, to inform and improve the community discussion, was unanimously supported. Organizations such as the ALA have spent decades developing guidelines for dealing with the full spectrum of audiences and audience needs, and we could learn from their work. Moreover, there have been many arguments made on the basis of narrow anecdotal evidence, which could be improved or removed with more detailed knowledge.
Some of the specifics of the language used were controversial. It focuses in three places on children, which I find too much emphasis on that particular audience. It takes a stand on the relationship between children, parents, and teachers - something I don't think is appropriate for the Foundation. And after commissioning research, it asks for recommendations to be developed "for the Board," which is ambiguous. Any recommendations about editorial policy or presentation guidelines would be most accurately presented to the community policy-makers. On the other hand, one might still say that work done pursuant to a resolution was done "for the Board."
We need to clarify the next steps -- something I hope we can do with the outside researchers. I expect the research will be done publicly, and shared as it develops; it would be good to have this confirmed. And I hope any discussions around this research, including followups to the Commons policy debates in May, will continue steadily over the summer, and not in hasty bursts. Sj 11:48, 24 June 2010 (UTC)