Wikipedia talk:Advisory Council on Project Development/Issues/Community decision making

Proposal
One way to perhaps really involve the community more in decision making would making participating in discussion much more easy. I might propose something like the following:
 * Some projects, WP:MILHIST perhaps most obvious among them, have a monthly newsletter, which seems to for at leat that project be an excellent way to actively bring in people who might not be otherwise engaged. Perhaps a way to bring about more involvement in community decision making might be creating "discussions of the month" linked to through something similar to a project newsletter, and more or less limiting discussion to two months on any given idea, the first month for open discussion of all relevant ideas, and the second month for concrete !voting or other ways of bringing about resolution. Should no resolution be achieved, of course, then the situation remains unchanged, and could be changed if the need arises by using other existing means.
 * Where possible, leaving messages on specific WikiProject talk pages or other noticeboards which have direct relevance to the topic of discussion about the matter, and actively encouraging input from the people who frequentl those pages. This might also include mention in various project newsletters, like that mentioned above.
 * Regarding conflicts on content, which I think tends to be among the most problematic issues, follow all the steps above. with, where possible, requesting volunteers to serve as "advocates" for a mock trial of the issue before the entire community. Ideally, these "lawyers" would have several individuals on each "side" (maybe expecting at least three "sides" per issue, on for change 1, one for change 2, and one for the status quo) so that no one or few individuals get overwhelmed by the task. These "trials" would reasonably allow a certain degree of laxer conduct rules on the "advocates", much like political debates, for the purposes of maintaining observer interest and being able to stress relevant points, but should individual "advocates" go too far over the line, a group of people, probably ArbCom itself or this body, could disqualify them from the position. They could be expected to run at least a month on presentation of the issue at hand, and then, perhaps, for the second month the "advocates" could be involved in discussing the pro and cons of any given proposal. I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to have separate pages for "advocate" discussion and for general discussion. John Carter (talk) 17:42, 27 August 2009 (UTC)