--- "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor(a)abc.com> wrote:
It's really a simple matter of social dynamics.
If a community is small enough, it doesn't need
"government". People know each other, talk about
things, see what everyone else does. Cooperation is
easy and informal.
When a community gets too big for this easy-going
camaraderie, it must institute standards or
disintegrate.
I do not know what the "magic number" is for on-line
communities, but I've been in several and I've seen
how the absence of standards, combined with (A) too
many people or (B) people with too much time on
their hands, can bring a group down to its lowest
common denominator -- sometimes called "mob rule".
Wikipedia has already had to create rules (no
"graffiti") and get up a police force (sysops, who
can protect articles and block IP's).
Thus, we have a stratified society with 5 levels of
citizens.
(1) Jimbo is a truly benevolent monarch, subsidizing
the kingdom from his own pocket. He can veto any
decision of the developers, although he rarely does;
he rules much more by sharing his wisdom. (I use the
words "benevolence" and "wisdom" literally, without
any irony or humor.)
(2) The developers (3 at last count) have more clout
than the sysops, although like Jimbo they are
scrupulous about not imposing their editorial will
on any article. They are truly a noble class (again,
no irony intended), donating their time to serve and
protect the community like the knights of yore.
(3) The sysops (42 and rising) can protect or delete
any article, and block an IP. They're supposed to do
this only for "vandalism", narrowly defined as (a)
inexplicable page deletion, (b) silly, foul or
obscene graffiti; or possibly copyright violations.
Of the last several dozen blocks that I've reviewed,
practically all were for graffiti or deletion.
(4) Signed-in users. There are over 1,000 --
although only around 10% contribute much. They can
be blocked by a developer, although this would
"cause talk" and might even elicit a comment from
Jimbo about exceeding authority, so it rarely
happens. They get a user page and a user talk page,
which by tradition they can pretty much post or
delete whatever they want. For example, Lir keeps
what Zoe calls a "nice clean page" (often deleting
negative comments -- although she kept my "please
don't tease Zoe" request :-)
(5) Anonymous users are the lowest class of our
society, yet they have tremendous power. Like users
at the higher levels, they can change any page any
time in any way, except for a few protected pages.
Moreover, since all users have this "any
change...any time" power, every "decision" is
subject to veto: anyone can revert any change.
(Sometimes this balance of power leads to edit wars,
but these still occur rarely enough to be
tolerable.) An anonymous user who abuses their
privileges can be blocked by a user with sysop or
higher rights. At this point, they become refugees
or exiles; they can apply for unblocking via e-mail.
A related difficulty arises when a signed-in user
and an anonymous user share the same IP address,
e.g., 2 patrons at a library or 2 customers of a
cable system. Blocking the IP also blocks the
signed-in user. This is a technical problem, and
solving it will not materially change the social
dynamics of our stratified society.
Ed Poor
That's an interesting classification Ed. Really. But.
I am a 4 in YOUR stratified society. Sometimes a 5. I
don't really know any of you except a bit from this
list.
On the fr.wiki, I usually am a 3. But, of course, I am
not one of THE 42 sysops.
Sometimes, it seems I have to deal with a 100mb
message that I cannot really understand on a remote
french speaking mailing list. But, of course, it is
not really one of the THREE wikipedia mailing lists,
isn't it ?
http://www.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2002-November/006953.html
Stratified society indeed. Main list indeed.
Today, for reasons I cannot understand, I "downgraded"
to level 5 on the fr.wiki, for my identification is
refused. Weird.
J'ai besoin d'un preux chevalier des temps anciens
(strate 2), qui pourrait voler au secours d'une pauvre
cerve (strate 5)...
__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
U2 on LAUNCH - Exclusive greatest hits videos
http://launch.yahoo.com/u2