Wikipedia talk:Guidance Committee

Why a Guidance Committee?
Much concern has been raised about obstruction on policy pages (see Wikipedia talk:Governance reform and associated pages; beware, LARGE).

I am reluctant to support the introduction of any body on the English Wikipedia designed solely to stop this obstruction, as I feel that any body would harm the community through performing a minor task while engaging a huge amount of community time.

The Guidance Committee that I propose would have the power to stop obstruction, and the power to make decisions on behalf of the community if requested to do so by the community, therefore abolishing the apparent need for a dedicated Policy Committee or policy review process, while engaging in much more productive activities such as advocacy, representation, guidance, leadership, organisation, and so on.

I think the English Wikipedia community's need for a body of leadership and guidance is often dismissed by community members who feel that such a body would repress the community and close its leadership to a select cult of tough guys who have the guns, so to speak. The Guidance Committee would increase community involvement, acting as a catalyst for discussion, and open its leadership through this involvement; as for the Committee becoming a cult, its members would be elected, by the community, to six-month terms. Any authority that the Committee would have would be used for the community's protection and benefit, not repression, and, even then, only at the request of the community. The Committee's responsibility would be to guide, to act as a body of counseling, and work with the community while being part of the community — hence, Guidance Committee — as opposed to simply imposing decisions on the community.

Ultimately, I'd like a Guidance Committee for each Wikimedia Foundation project and language, so that these committees could represent and assist the volunteer communities of each project and language and interact together to organise initiatives. — Thomas H. Larsen 21:48, 11 May 2008 (UTC)


 * The front page is very vague. Can you be more specific about just what this committee would do, and how it would do it? Give some examples, perhaps? --GRuban (talk) 15:41, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

95% support
Based on, say, ArbCom election results, I expect this would make for a very small committee. Is this intentional? Kirill (prof) 13:12, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

Why is it needed
I'm not clear. Currently, our consensus method means those who wish to build a consensus do so. Why would those people then choose to hand the issue over to a committee? This seems to be fixing problems when people aren't following the consensus model. Arbitration is supposed to deal with people who don't follow the consensus model. Shouldn't we be looking at fixing the arbitration committee rather than instituting another committee? Hiding T 20:59, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree. Creating a whole new committee just adds even more bureaucracy to Wikipedia Reforming any existing organisations would be far easier. The Arbitration Committee will have to be improved at some point, so there's little point in brushing over it with a new organisation - • The Giant Puffin •  22:12, 14 May 2008 (UTC)