Tony probably considers me one of the people referred to in:
"Another thing that has happened is the growth in the number of people
who are basically second class Wikipedians, because they aren't yet
acculturated, and they probably never will be. Some of these people
are even administrators."
I joined WP last September for two reasons; one was quite simply to
work on better individual articles. The other was to improve the scope
and reliability of WP in general. Having taught about WP as a teacher
of librarianship, I was very aware of the problems.
The problems derive from the practices of the people who began, and it
is right that an turnover in the more experienced people should change
things. They were interested for the most part in demonstrating a
concept, and also in providing a platform for writing about what they
were interested in in a way that would have somewhat more stability
and responsibility than usenet. They accepted each others' ways, they
asked for very little in the way of authentication, they documented
careless from the relatively limited array of online sources, they
were primarily interested in a very limited range of topics--and those
were not covered well by other available sources, they were willing to
use any PD content whatsoever regardless of obsolescence, they
controlled behavior and standards by a consensus of the most active
members & they were in general agreement.
None of this is the case now. BJAODN is a typical product of the old
school, as is poking fun at the unfortunate. Some of the problems now
are over-reaction. A draconic BLP is a reaction to an irresponsible
lack of policy. An overinsistence on the details of GFDL is a reaction
to irresponsible attitudes to copyright. A requirement for formal
sources were important subjects intrinsically have no formal sources
is an overreaction to the use of inadequate sources even where there
were good ones. Each of these will reach a balance.
The use of arbitrary structure and decision making however remains. A
policy where any admin can delete anything and any other admin can
reverse him made sense only when they knew each other. Now, it's a
parody of direct democracy--it's rule by autonomous warlords in a
world without boundaries. I know of no organization whatsoever of this
size which even attempts to work this way. It persists because people
are for the most part sensible--as are the new admins, in my somewhat
biased opinion as one of them.
But some established administrators generally, not just in WP, react
to threatened change by hardening their positions. I--and all or
almost all of the newer people--would never dream of the sort of
extensive one-sided or otherwise unfair actions that have taken place.
I cannot imagine deleting on my own authority a group of
long-established pages on a relative technicality. I cannot imagine a
process of repeatedly nominating pages for deletion until it by chance
happens. I cannot imagine a process of staffing the deciding body in
such a small and unrepresentative a way that such variation can occur.
I cannot imagine having a deliberative process like Deletion Review
or AfD and then letting a single person decide to not let actions
under them run their course.
I would never intervene administratively in a matter where I have
debated. But the established people do this all the time, and think it
justified.
DGG
--
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.