Wikiversity talk:Assembly/Discussion

Oppose
I oppose this "process" as convoluted, not necessary, and going against everything that makes a Wiki and Wikiversity workable. Ottava Rima (talk) 00:52, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Ottava, I've yet to figure out what the heck this thing is supposed to do, nevermind how it's supposed to do it. Which may or not mean that I agree with you, depending on what the last part of your comment means. --SB_Johnny talk 01:24, 12 September 2011 (UTC)
 * My suggestions: three options:
 * Do nothing. You can always do something later, which includes participating or acting to oppose or shut this down.
 * Try to shut this down. I don't recommend that, but it's up to you. Big waste of time, I'd predict. Saying "Oppose" here probably won't have any effect, but I suppose I could be wrong.
 * Participate. Register as a member of the Assembly, it will take you a minute. Name the user you most trust as a proxy, and then you can forget about it. Total investment: one or two minutes. Unless you decide to do more later. Now, is there anyone you trust? TANSTAAFL. -Abd 05:22, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

As the default Assembly clerk, it's part of my responsibility to assist all users as to what they want to do. Above, I did suggest some options, but I don't know if they are satisfactory, since the user did not respond to the comment. It's certainly possible to formally oppose this whole process without using it, such as by using Community review, but it would probably be more disruptive than simply participating and proposing a "Shutdown the Assembly" topic. Just register for the Assembly, name a proxy if you trust anyone -- that's optional, of course -- and then propose the topic on the Assembly page. You can see one that I proposed there. Your proposal will require a second, or it will eventually be archived. If it's archived, it may be brought back by a user who seconds it. You will be able to clerk your own process, or you may appoint any other registered member of the Assembly to do that. I'll assist.

Instead of proposing a subpage, you may instead propose a plenary motion to adjourn permanently, or to some time in the future. That would not be debatable, and, if seconded, it would go immediately to a Yes/No poll, discussion or amendment would not be allowed. By its very nature, debate and discussion would defeat the purpose of the motion. If this is what you want to do, just put it on the page, at the bottom, and I'll refactor it if needed to request a second and explain that a seconded motion to adjourn is not debatable.

Note: to participate in Assembly process, I'm proposing and will stand for, you must register as a member of the Assembly. This is not standard wiki free-for-all process, but it is, all the same, open to anyone who wishes to participate, following due process. If it is determined that this violates some site policy, as an example, the process -- or parts of it -- would, I'd assume, move off-wiki. It's really about freedom of association, there are some ancient principles involved. I personally prefer it all to be on-wiki for transparency.

What I actually recommend depends on whether or not you want to receive Assembly notifications. If you do, then register. If not, then register, preferably name a proxy, and put "no notices" in the field for that. You would not receive any routine notices in that case. Or ignore the whole thing, if you really think it's a waste of time. Your choice. I suggest not wasting your own time opposing how others want to "waste" theirs.


 * "As the default Assembly clerk" There is no "Assembly" until it is ratified by the community and there is already opposition to it. All processes must be established by consensus, especially when they are in Wikiversity namespace. Ottava Rima (talk) 21:28, 15 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Ottava, my duty as the default clerk is to assist you, if you become a member of the Assembly. I will also assist non-members, as appropriate. The Assembly exists, that's patently obvious. The page location is unimportant. If that's what the community wants, the whole thing could be moved to my user space, or that of any user willing to take responsibility, and the full Assembly concept allows multiple Assemblies (it must, it's a safeguard. but if a single assembly is being well-run, it will be unnecessary.) Yes, there is opposition, none of it formally expressed, with formal support expressed by more users. Care to list who is opposed, and look at Delegable proxy/Table for the support? Actual sign-up. But the Assembly is what I've called, in my work over about three decades, a "Free Association." People can be, and are sometimes, opposed to the creation of such things, but generally don't have the power to prevent it, because of .... freedom of association. Only where people have access to centralized power can they prevent it. Some did prevent such organization on Wikpiedia, see w:WP:Esperanza. If you think the Assembly should not "exist," you can RfD it, but it would be a waste of time. Notice that the Esperanza MfD on Wikipedia, in spite of massive participation, failed to delete. Esperanza, however, shut down, because the members really didn't see the need and how to proceed -- non-disruptively! -- in spite of such opposition.
 * A word about "default clerk." I'm generally following Robert's Rules of Order. A "clerk" is a meeting chair. Organizations are begun, as suggested in those Rules, by a person who calls a meeting, and the person who calls the meeting is the default chair, opens the meeting, and handles initial organizational business. I've done this many times in real life. It's simple, and it's effective. When does the organization exist? You can argue about the moment of birth if you like. Does it really matter?


 * A request. Register as a member of the Assembly! Members of the Assembly may propose that the Assembly shut down or disband. It would be in order, and, if seconded, would allow the formation of an Assembly committee (page!) to prepare a report. If you are the proposer, you would be the default clerk. You'd have a maximum shot at producing an effective report, and you can exclude participants, if you think this would help. By registering as a member, you are supporting, though, the Assembly concept, in a way. But it could be merely to assist the community to shut down what you think of as a problem. Or you can do whatever you like. You can prepare that report all by yourself, and present it. You can ask others to help you in your user space, and you can, there, control who participates and who doesn't. Just follow WV policy, i.e., civility, etc. How about it? --Abd 17:19, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

General discussion
Moved from Assembly page --Abd 17:08, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Am I an assembly member or not? Who decides? --SB_Johnny talk 00:20, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the question. No, you are not yet an Assembly member, according to the proposed process. You decide. See Assembly/Full_description.


 * Personally, I have reservations about this proposal, but it has potential. Could we start with delegable proxy, and explore the assembly if it succeeds? The proxy idea, on an opt-in basis, seems fine, but I'm not sure about a new forum for discussion. --Draicone (talk) 06:51, 16 September 2011 (UTC)
 * We are starting with Delegable proxy, but Delegable proxy won't mean much to people without an application. The Assembly uses delegable proxy to allow a small number of people discussing to represent a larger number, thus addressing the basic problem of scale in democratic process (which is often cited as a reason why direct democracy cannot work).


 * How would we know if Delegable proxy "succeeds" without an application? There has already been a small demonstration of the power of delegable proxy, in a wiki context, here, yesterday. In assigning a proxy, the "client" has consented to communication from the proxy, that's intrinsic, and very important. I proposed, here, the formation of a committee, effectively, to study and make recommendations about Assembly process, so that what happens here is not just about me and my ideas. But nobody seconded it. Probably because nobody realized that a second was necessary, people are not accustomed to this on a wiki, and aren't necessarily watching. So I notified my clients and I got a second here within, it seemed like, seconds! It was actually 14 minutes.


 * As the Assembly is not a "central control process," it's very safe. If it produces reports that are, in fact, from a biased subset of the WV user base, the reports will simply be a relatively coherent representation of that biased subset, and the only time wasted, if any, would be of those who voluntarily participate. Other users would remain free to ignore the reports, if they think them non-representative. On the other hand, what if the report represents a genuine informed consensus, coherently presented as a report, with documented discussion behind it? A decision based on this would be self-enforcing, that's the power of consensus.


 * Draicone implies that delegable proxy might have other applications. He's correct. For example, we could elect, using this process, a Standing Arbitration Committee that would fully represent the community. I'm not proposing that, it's way premature, in my opinion, but we might elect an Executive Committee that could represent the consent (direct or indirect) of almost every participant, through the practically-perfect proportional representation that delegable proxy makes possible. Maybe. Not my proposal at this time. Let's start with something simpler and see how it works. --Abd 16:32, 16 September 2011 (UTC)

Selection of a clerk and proxy voting
The proposer should not become the clerk. That is not a very sound idea. If I want to write a report and I find one other person that seconds the motion I control the procedure by which decisions for the report are made? I could to that on a sub page of my user page and I wouldn't need the assembly to give me any authority (it doesn't appear to have anyway). I think the assembly should do more to involve people at the beginning, which could for instance be to elect an unbiased clerk. And maybe a proxy voter should have a mechanism for informing his clients about decisions made in their name or at least the upcoming topics of votes? As an enduser of the system one would probably also want the chance to support/withdraw support for specific votings. --Bernhard Fastenrath 14:32, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * By the way, it would be ideal if the clerk for a process is not the proposer, but for such to be possible, there would need to be volunteer clerks ready to serve, and acceptable to the participants. I think that some considerable part of the reaction to this proposal thinks of it as a decision-making process, where a proposer would have a conflict of interest. It's not that. It's a method for creating reports on a topic. Only in one area might Assembly reports, as matters exist, be considered authoritative: with respect to Assembly process itself, and even that only under certain restrictions. --Abd 16:31, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Fasten. You control the procedure for *your proposal.* Someone else may propose a parallel virtual committee on the same topic. The Assembly page will list both, and a full Assembly report will link to all such parallel reports. We will hold an election for overall clerk at the earliest opportunity. Many details exist in the concept that have not been explained yet. There can be an alternate Assembly if someone thinks that the "Assembly clerk" is doing a poor job. It should be realized that Assembly reports are purely advisory. I can say this: my goal as default clerk is to ensure that it's not necessary to start an alternative Assembly! But if I fail at that, in someone's opinion, it really is no big deal. If I *actually* fail to be fair and impartial, I'll only be shooting myself in the foot.


 * In any case, this question should really be brought up in the current topic on . --Abd 02:05, 30 September 2011 (UTC)


 * There is a wording of the universal formulation of the categorical imperative that translates to: "Act so that through his maxims the will may consider itself at the same time as generally lawgiving." The default clerk in your design is a little bit too generally lawgiving in my opinion. When the individual considers himself to be lawgiving that is amusingly more or less in direct opposition of the meaning of the words, with the highly theoretical exception that every individual was a perfect philosopher. The perspective to consider yourself to be "generally lawgiving" is meant to help you to determine your maxims in such a way that they are suitable to sustain a high ethical standard under different circumstances, not to actually influence anything. (de:Lehrplan:Rechtskunde) --Bernhard Fastenrath 20:01, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * That Wikipedia article is about Kant's philosophy, and it establishes a moral principle, which is being followed here, though it must be made clear that I'm establishing a moral imperative only for myself, with the understanding that I'd consent or accept or encourage everyone else to follow the same. Every person has the right to structure and control their own process. The right to determine initial process, by a proposer of a process in an absence of existing structure, is universally respected, and others are properly free to participate or not. The Assembly process as initiated here does not create a unique central domination, unless nobody establishes an independent "center." This page is currently in Wikiversity space, and does create an implication that there is only one "Assembly." If the Assembly process is fairly run, however, there will be no need for additional assemblies, and whether or not any will be created remains to be seen. I am doing, here, as "default clerk," what any Wikiversity user could do. I'll move this to my user space or elsewhere if the community wishes that. I urge other Wikiversity users to either participate in this process, as it is, ignore it, or create their own. --Abd 16:27, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The procedure is flawed, of course. You are trying to assume an office that does have a certain influence. Being a custodian you might, for instance, manage to gain sufficient support to leave any alternate Assembly process with only an insufficiently small group of people to make it worthwhile. There is also no particular reason why the "default clerk" should be you. The usual process would be an election, which you do not consider necessary. In my opinion your undemocratic approach disqualifies your candidacy, even if the Assembly is only an inofficial panel to create non-committal documents.
 * One could also argue that according to the categorical imperative a better approach would be to establish consensus about electing a clerk. If others would follow your example there might be many "default clerks" all trying to establish their own Assemblies. --Bernhard Fastenrath 19:21, 17 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Draicone mentions "a new forum for discussion." If discussion were the goal, the Assembly would not be needed, we already have ample fora for discussion, as such. What is needed is deliberation and the facilitation of consensus. Existing discussion process frequently fails to accomplish that, producing, when there is contention, long pages, with tortuous commentary, that hardly anyone reads. The goal of an Assembly process is a coherent report, or set of reports when a single report is not possible. The Assembly is only an advisory body and does not create new decision-making process. However, if an existing decision-making process is preceded by Assembly consideration, it's more likely to represent a true community consensus. --Abd 16:16, 16 October 2011 (UTC)

summary creation of discussions, ...
I'm not sure yet if I understand all of this concept, since I need to read more, but one thing which I find valuable would be this: As Abd tells above "Existing discussion process frequently fails to accomplish that, producing, when there is contention, long pages, with tortuous commentary, that hardly anyone reads." if the Assembly or another group (name it what you want: summarizers, summary group, ... whatever) would be willing to create periodically summaries that would benefit WV I think, since it helps users to find an easy entry. I remember what my history teacher told once (when comparing subjects):
 * creating summaries
 * History is a good subject for pupils, one can start anytime (again) even if you do not know previous things (like e.g. in math)

And history in my view is just a (biased) summary of past events, Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat + Identi.ca 11:55, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Full history isn't biased, but in the real world, we cannot report the full history, so we must select, thus we may introduce selection bias even if all the evidence we provide is uncontroversial (in itself). However, the truly interesting question is how to produce unbiased reports. My answer is the same as my response to the issue of neutrality: consensus. We may disagree on some alleged fact, but we may be able to come to agreement on a statement of mutually accepted facts, plus statements of facts on which we disagree. We may report attributed opinions and judgments. Consensus process -- full consensus -- is possible, it's often successful, even if it starts with seemly intractable disputes, if undertaken in good faith. That requires participants willing to take the time to fully express positions, to "listen" carefully to the other side(s), and to agree to what is agreeable. My experience with full consensus process is that it works. I've seen it "fail," but what really happened was that a party bailed. We could speculate about reasons, it could be that it was just too much trouble, or it could be that the process was exposing that certain held and expressed positions were becoming obvious as not being held in good faith, there was a hidden agenda, and the person did not want it revealed. I think that's actually rare, but maybe I've moved mostly in congenial circles.
 * Suppose we collect, on an Assembly process, page, all evidence considered relevant by participants. You might think my evidence is cherry-picked, but, then, you may fill in what I left out. The collection of our work can become a consensus document, showing an agreement that this is all the necessary evidence for this issue, and we agree on it (at least temporarily). That doesn't mean that we might not assert something else later, but that, at least, we can start with some kind of agreement. Then begins the more difficult part, analysis. Indeed, this process without skilled facilitation can be very difficult. Ideally, we would identity skilled facilitators, the best we can find. We really should solicit them. I'm an amateur at this, even though I have some experience (I was successful at this on Wikipedia, strangely enough.)
 * But one device starts with each side expressing their position, then "opposing" participants are tasked with expressing the position of the *other* side, such that the other side can say, "yes, that's what we believe." The point is to, again, start by establishing communication on a deeper level than attempting to agree on conclusions, and arguing about them, which is really backwards. If we don't share the same assumptions, of course we may not agree on conclusions! What are the underlying assumptions on which we differ? Could you, perhaps, recognize that, if you held the same assumptions as I, you'd agree with me? Again, this extends and deepens consensus, making visible where we might actually disagree.
 * And then we might go even deeper, and identify the basic assumptions that we share, and find a way to formulate new possibilities on which we can agree, which may bring us to conclusions that unite us instead of dividing us. The result of this can be highly satisfying, but it's very difficult to do with large groups, hence the Assembly process is designed to break the process down to small groups, and, as you will see, some back-and-forth over time. A clerk who does a decent job will prepare consensus reports that will be accepted. By design. And the result will be a better-informed community and better-informed decision-making process. There is a reason why the Assembly is not a decision-making body. It's advisory. If you want the political theory, look to Montesquieu, it's the independence of the judiciary vs. the executive.--Abd 00:27, 12 November 2011 (UTC)
 * Delegable proxy, however, adds a new dimension, because DP sets up a communications hierarchy. That won't be visible immediately, but a proxy/client relationship is a consent to mutual direct communication, based on a relationship of trust. In a situation like Wikiversity, power remains with the individual users, but certain individuals can sometimes exert inequitable power, because of the phenomena of participation bias. Delegable proxy allows the observation of this (merely as an estimation), but also sets up ways to test true consensus. I'm certainly not describing the full theory. There is only a little real-life testing of this, so far. It's designed, though, in theory, to be fail-safe. Again, that's partly because the proxies have no intrinsic authority. They are simply nodes in a communications network. --Abd 00:27, 12 November 2011 (UTC)

not linked page from anywhere

 * User talk:Abd/Assembly process, Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat + Identi.ca 13:40, 21 October 2011 (UTC)
 * Thanks. That's the talk page for User:Abd/Assembly process. --Abd 00:01, 12 November 2011 (UTC)