uninvited(a)nerstrand.net wrote:
>One thing that is clear is that the community can't make any
>nonincremental changes to policy itself without solid leadership, and
>there are any number of contributors with social insight who have quit
>even discussing meaningful change (as well as those who have quit the
>project entirely) because of the impossibility of accomplishing it.
>
>
With respect to this list in particular, that might be because not only
is meaningful change impossible without some kind of deus ex machina,
but even meaningful discussion of change is often impossible.
>The reasons for this have to do with the size of the contributor base,
>the fact of the developers not being accountable to the community, and
>the presence of many contributors who are perhaps excellent writers and
>editors but who lack skills and experience in group decisionmaking.
>
>
I agree in part, although developer work has little direct bearing on
some of the changes that could be discussed. The last point can be an
issue, although I would say that organizational cultures often stand in
for skills and experience; even among successful groups, a large
contingent with prior real training in group decisionmaking is somewhat
rare.
But the size of the community is definitely making the adjustment
process more chaotic and dysfunctional. A couple months ago, I estimated
that the functional size of the English Wikipedia community was
equivalent to a town of 15,000 people. It might be as much as 20,000
now, though due to the change in procedure for the Arbitration Committee
elections, I'm unable to update my method of estimating this.
These kinds of numbers severely strain the ability of an impromptu
system of law and order to keep up, as can be seen in the history of
boom towns in the American West. Their outer limits, if their appeal to
settlers could hold out that long, I would peg the limit at about
30,000, and that scenario would bring rampant problems like massive
fires, labor disputes turning violent, and widespread vigilantism.
Beyond that size, the towns had to develop real systems of government or
be abandoned to a future as museum pieces.
In our case, compared to say a mining economy, we're lucky. Our vein of
ore need not run out. But as our success is less dependent on such
outside factors, it depends instead on internal issues like improving
community self-government. We must create an environment in which people
will still be comfortable developing the resource we have. If the public
loses the general perception that, on balance, our content improves over
time, then the Great Wikipedia Gold Rush will be over.
--Michael Snow