Wikiversity:Policies/How Wikiversity makes policy

This article is about the development of Wikiversity.
Please help Wikiversity by adding your ideas about what Wikiversity should become, or what it should do.

This page is a discussion page about how Wikiversity did, does and should make policy.

Background: How Wikiversity made policy in the past

Phase 1

In August 2006, there was a large, rapid failure to agree on almost anything: see the voting on a large range of proposed policies. Mostly the number of votes was small and the outcomes inconclusive. About 3 official policies were voted in and tagged as such by User:Trevor MacInnis at the end of August 2006. The voting procedure was subject to a small boycott by two users who felt the procedure was flawed.

Additionally, further policies came into effect by means of inheritance from the Wikimedia Foundation. The Foundation leaves most policy matters to local projects, but some policy is determined by the foundation.

Phase 2

At the beginning of 2007, a custodian flagged a number of policies (about 5) as "official" when they had previously been flagged as "proposed" (and at least one of them had actually been rejected quite clearly in a vote). So far as is known, the officialisation of these policies was not notified to the community and consensus was not built.

Phase 3

During 2008, the problems with policy slowly came to light and a policy review was called for.

Summary

There is no established means of creating policy at Wikiversity, and past procedures have been deeply flawed.

Discussion: How should Wikiversity make policy?

Personally, I don't know. But my gut instinct is to go for as big a consensus as possible, which on a small project like Wikiversity means using the Wikiversity:Colloquium to attract as much attention as possible. As attention spans on Wikiversity are usually pretty short (a few days for something moderately important), one only has a small window of opportunity to attract drafting and voting activity, so unfortunately I think one needs to move fast. And perhaps no more than one policy at a time, because otherwise people will suffer from overload, as they did back in August 2006. --McCormack 06:46, 15 September 2008 (UTC)[reply]