[WikiEN-l] So you think you can be a Wikipedia article

[Peter Ansell]

On 25/07/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/24/06, Peter Ansell <ansell.peter at gmail.com> wrote:
> > On 23/07/06, stevertigo <vertigosteve at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > Because Wikipedia has no leadership. It has 1000 sysops who are just "janitors"
> > > according to the dominant view, no editorial core, and a founder who has had
> > > argued enough with trolls and has gone wandering off into the land of politics.
> > >
> > > SV
> > >
> >
> > No management expert will ever tell you that a group of 1000 people
> > will ever get anywhere in strategy terms very fast. It is simply too
> > large to facilitate effective communication and quick agreement on
> > issues. As you say, there is a core community group missing. There is
> > the board and related personnel at the top (aka, OFFICE) , followed by
> > a small group of judges(aka, bcrats) who dont make policy so much as
> > rule on it, and then there are the so called "janitors" (aka, sysops).
> >
> > Following the highly successful national model with Cabinet, Courts,
> > and Parliament, it is the parliament that is missing. Right now, and
> > possibly from the wiki culture, the parliament is traditionally the
> > whole community with anyone who wants to have a say being able to do
> > so. I would contend that the size of such a parliament is limited in
> > its ability to make effective decisions.
> >
> > The current heirarchy does not place any special policy related
> > privileges on the sysop layer, and I am not about to say that it
> > should, but in ignoring the Parliament layer it is missing an
> > essential branch in the proven three prong, "separation of powers"
> > model.
> >
> > Peter Ansell
>
> Wouldn't any democracy-variant simply invite even more sock-puppeting?
> I think perhaps voting through one's edits is the only feasible
> method, as edits require effort and so put up a barrier to entry
> (which in the real world is supplied by the minor barrier that one
> cannot easily replicate oneself).  Which is essentially what we
> already do.

Why would a representative type democracy invite more sock puppeting
than the direct democracy that is currently ruling? Apart from the
choosing representatives, of which sockpuppeting may already be a
problem, it would reduce the load and enable people to get on with
improving the project without having to worry about vandals and other
nasties twenty four seven.

I agree that a good edit history is important, and for the purposes I
am stating it would not be immune. The current model where the
"janitors" are in a sense at a mutual respect for each other while not
having mandates to practically improve anything, since they are
elected on the basis of their civility and lack of vandalism
basically.

By giving a group of people a practical mandate to improve the basis
of the community and provide it with life from the basic policies
outward. This is mostly what I was stating in my first small email
that was responded to in tone and started this discussion.

Peter Ansell