ESB:Discussions/New policy mindset/voting

Section #1: Introduction
Thanks to the input I have got, I have managed to create an improved and perfected version of the policy mindset I have proposed in the concern stage of this discussion and thus created voting proposal for that discussion. So, you will now be able to see the voting stage of the new discussion system in action for a first time; which means that this would be another test before “discussion to make the new discussion system official” is created. I hope that results of this voting stage would make you even more prone to the new discussion system. Now, before we begin, note that there are three logical parts of this proposal: “the new policy mindset, future discussions and the new policy format”.

Section #2A: Mindset
Here is what I have concluded from the concern stage of the discussion. The new mindset I was proposing was good, but it was leaning too much on emotional side, which would eventually create the same “dis-balance of emotional and rational” current policy are creating by leaning too much on rational side. So, the only solution I got was to make a policy mindset that will balance emotional and rational, and that is what I have achieved by creating new improved policy mindset. Now, I am now proposing that new policy mindset together with future discussions that come with it.

Key to the mindset is to systematize these aspects of policies: “building them” and “presenting them”. Let’s begin with making them. I would like to introduce the concept of personas. Personas are personality profiles of people that visit some site, here is an example of a well-made persona for another site that is not ESB. Now, when people are making personas, they usually create three personas that should cover almost everyone who visits the site and make sure that final product is adapted to all three of them. Those three personas are called primary, secondary and tertiary persona; representing primary, secondary and tertiary group of people that visits some site.

Section #2B: Discussions
If this proposal passes, by using the new discussion system we will in next new policy mindset discussion define what type of the person is primary, secondary and tertiary user of this wiki. In other words, we will be asking: “Which way of doing things users are prone to?” and then split results we got into three groups of people: primary, secondary and tertiary group of people. So, we may have primary user who wants to contribute knowledge and have a friendly chat with other users, we may have secondary user who wants to edit and is not interested in socializing and then we may have tertiary user who wants to analyze quality of the content and propose improvements of it. Once we have defined those three types of users, by using the new discussion system we will have series of discussions with purpose to make sure that rules fit to all three types; which is the hardest part of rewriting rules, since those three groups may be nothing alike, like in the given example.

However, what would be the point of those personas on ESB? Once we precisely define what kind of people visit ESB and thus create personality profile for them, we will be able to write rules that would be adapted to personalities of those people, to write rules that people would actually be prone to follow. So, we are adapting rules to the people of ESB, not making people of ESB adapt to rules of ESB. However, note that we will still keep general purpose of the rule. If some rule was there to prevent something, rewritten rule will just take different approach to prevent that something, approach adapted to the three personas I have explained. Also, note that since community can change over time, our policy need to change over time. So, as soon as we start considering it to be needed, we can repeat process of defining the three personas and adapting rules to them while keeping the original purpose. That can be every six months, ever year, every two years; pretty much anytime.

Section #2C: Format
In order to take care of “presenting policy”, I have created “the new format of ESB:Policy” and created this self-explanatory new ESB:Policy example page in order to propose organization of the new ESB:Policy sections and also propose a way on which we will fill the content of those sections. Now, let me explain the reason behind every part of that example page. First section, “building community” section is there to guide users how to approach other users, how to be their mentor, so all users on ESB can grow as part of ESB community. Once you have “mentoring mindset” in your mind, you now have “maintaining harmony” section which is there to provide actual rules that would basically be rules we already have, having the same purpose as original rules, but adjusted to those three personas we will make for ESB. On the other hand, rules will be rewritten as paragraphs, so users can even more easily immerse themselves in their role(s) and rules that comes with them.

On the other hand, to make whole writing policy and building the page more easier, I have also created this two templates: Template:PolicyContent and Template:CommunityRoleSection. First one is to provide predefined policy content as “policy text” that should be added to corresponding place in each ESB role section and on that way smoothly incorporated into the section; like it is primarily shown in “Bureaucrat” section on new ESB:Policy example page. More, that first template is made to make “duplication” mentioned on the example page easier and to put all “textual-rules” at one place while also separating them from the rest of the policy page. So, when you change the text in the template, you change everywhere it is imported. Now, to make things even more easier, there is the second template that serves as a template for creating role sections that will wrap around the "Structure" infobox once they are filled; so you do not have to write the same code over and over again.

Section #3: Summary
I propose we change policy mindset by adapting rules to ESB community rather than forcing ESB community to adapt to rules. We will do that by creating personality profiles of primary, secondary and tertiary group of people that visits ESB and rewrite rules by making them adjusted to each one of those three group of people and making them keep the same purpose original rule was there to achieve. Now, in order to make sure that those three personality profiles will be defined right, we should do it collectively and by using the new discussion system, we will be able to do just that, build those three personality profiles collectively, build those profiles together. On the other hand, after we build those three personality profiles, I propose that we start a series of the new discussion system discussions in order to also collectively redefine each role in ESB community. Well, we will use those new discussion system discussions to redefine ESB roles in accordance with a proposed format and thus progressively build a new ESB policy that will use that proposed format.