Anthony DiPierro wrote:
On 3/11/06, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com>
wrote:
And honestly, you should know me well enough by
now. No amount of
political, financial, or legal leverage in the entire universe would
persuade me to do the wrong thing by our mission. We have, as a
community, principles and integrity. This is what we are all about.
You've changed a lot from the early days. What started out as a
laissez faire "let the community decide for itself" attitude has grown
more and more despotic over time.
Anthony
Whoa. Despotic, you say?
Given the history of Wikipedia, Jimbo's been the most hands-off project
leader in the history of the Internet. Indeed, the community has been
left to decide almost everything for itself; and this has proved, in
almost all cases, to be the right thing to do.
Perhaps some of the current problems, such as the userbox nonsense and
general culture wars, are partly due to this -- without continual
intervention from above, many people may be unaware, or have forgotten,
that the Wikimedia Foundation and its corporate structure even exists
(and, in some cases, may also have forgotten about the whole "Wikipedia
is an encyclopedia" mission thing).
Somebody's got to deal with these problems when they happen. Who would
you prefer?
-- Neil