Wikipedia talk:WikiProject LGBT studies/Coordinator/May 2007

message: I'm very uncomfortable about this vote.  We have several people who want to volunteer to work on coordinating things.  There is no task that requires executive decision making, nor should there be.  There are no special powers or authority, nor should there be.  This is a wiki, not a bureaucracy.  People who want to coordinate things should just do it.  If several people step up at the same time, and step on each other's toes they should talk to each other and figure out how to work together.  That also would take much less effort than having an election. -- Samuel Wantman 07:56, 8 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The simple and inalienable fact is that people will always leave housekeeping for someone else to do. There is a lot of stuff on the project that has not been updated since I went on wikibreak - The open tasks template has not been updated, no-one is peer reviewing or assessing jumpaclasses, and no-one's even bothering to submit them anymore! The Portal languishes. Hell, the elections themselves have started late and are technically supposed to be finished by now. At any point anyone could have updated any of these - have they? No. I generally do it, even when I don't want to, because I have a title and because people expect it of me (though I have admittedly fallen down on the job recently, an unfortunate side effect of electing a student). When volunteers don't want to, they don't. That's why we're electing deputy coordinators, so I don't have to do it all, and so when I'm away, stuff still gets done. The duties of a coordinator specifically state that the role is merely organisational rather than authoritative, and everyone is running on that basis: I don't know where your getting your "special powers" idea from. Have YOU done any work on the project lately, or did you decide to leave it to someone else too? Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 15:02, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm simply suggesting that you ask for volunteers and just give the job to anyone who asks for it.  If four people have asked for it, "appoint" them all.    Because you have organized the project around people instead of around tasks, people might be afraid of stepping on your toes if they take on one of your "official" tasks.  I know that this is what I have done.  I started the parent of this project -- the LGBT notice board.  Since you have been so gung-ho about coordinating, I've backed off. Since there are no "special powers", just work that needs to be done we don't need to elect the people to do the work.  There are several people who have come forward to help.  Just put them to work.  There's no need to devote any time or effort to the election.  In real life, and in wikis, the best coordinators don't do the work themselves, they organize things so that it is easy for others to jump in when they have the time and inclination to assist. There is no coordinator of some of our most active pages, nobody "coordinates" afd, cfd, rfa, etc... -- Samuel Wantman 19:22, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

text: "Gung-ho"? Have I at any point stopped you from helping? Have I ever reverted anyone who has made changes to any of the project pages? If we don't elect people to do the work, people, generally speaking, don't do it. There is nothing, right, nothing to stop anyone who is not a coordinator from organising this project right now. Not a single page on this project refers to a Coordinator being required to update it, I made sure of that. The Coordinator page makes it very, very clear that anyone is welcome to help. And yet still people post on WP:LGBT/J asking why "no-one" has upgraded their article. When I do ask for volunteers, I don't get them, and any inspection of the talkpage archives shows that. The fact is, this is a wiki, and people will work on what interests them, and will rarely bother on housekeeping, even when BEGGED for help. So excuse me if I don't find your laissez-faire approach terribly convincing - the entire project knows I am currently on wikibreak, as it was announced in the newsletter, so even were I "gung-ho" it's the perfect opportunity for other people to get involved - has any admin been spontaneously done? No. The pages you mentioned all require specific administrative-only actions after a certain time limit, so it's hardly surprising admins do it. A more suitable analogy would be to compare the cleanup categories, the requests for peer review, the requests for comment... all of which are backlogged to the hilt because no-one's interested. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:18, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Look, I am really not out for a fight, so, if I have apparently come across as being "gung-ho", I apologise, and please know if you do want to work on our backlog, I would be thrilled to bits. Dev920 (Have a nice day!) 20:30, 12 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not fighting either.  I'm glad you've been "gung-ho".  I'm just making a suggestion.  4 people are interested.  Put them all to work.  Problem solved. -- Samuel Wantman 00:22, 13 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why are we voting?