[Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

Mike.lifeguard mike.lifeguard at gmail.com
Sat May 8 15:25:03 UTC 2010


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On 37-01--10 03:59 PM, Samuel Klein wrote:
>> This isn't an ideal situation. We should have a situation in which
>> Jimmy's technical power derives from the authority of the board of
>> trustees or from a community mandate, or we should have a situation in
>> which Jimmy does not have unlimited technical power.
> 
> I don't think this is a technical issue at all.   Considering how
> flexible and reversible wiki-actions are, it seems eminently
> appropriate to me for the project founder to have 'unlimited technical
> power' on the projects -- just as you and all of our developers do, at
> a much higher level.

The difference is that they don't use their access in ways that affect
the editor communities so directly. Sure, a software update might get
botched for a few minutes, or maybe some people don't like Vector so
much. But system administrators aren't deleting content en masse in
cases that are really *really* unclear. That's where the difference lies.

If Jimbo's going to be a figurehead, I think we can live with him having
essentially unlimited technical access on the wikis. If he's going to
actually use it, he needs a community mandate. Recall, he *didn't* found
all the wikis, and he *doesn't* edit most of them regularly. Recall that
English Wikipedia is in a special position (whether you think that is
good or bad) in that he actually did start that wiki, and he hangs
around the wiki sometimes. Not so for most of the Wikimedia universe. It
shouldn't be surprising that those other wikis are less tolerant of his
derisive attitude towards disagreements they may have with this actions
- - either the means or the ends.

- -Mike
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