Tim,
I respectfully disagree: we DO NOT have anarchy.
It's a benevolent dictatorship, moving gradually to a parliamentary democracy.
Jimbo is the leader.
Developers (like you!) hold most of the reins of power.
Admins (over 100 now!!) have access to "ban buttons" but have "limited authority" to use them.
Signed in users are the Middle Class.
Anonymous (IP) users are the Lower Class.
Jimbo is amazingly different from a GodKing (as described on Meatball Wiki). He subscribes to the principle that "government is best which governs least", but when push comes to shove he has occasionally put his foot down -- I know, awful metaphor ;-)
Developers almost always keep quiet and implement software features which seem to have consensus. No one ever complains about THEM!
Last year saw an explosion of admins; most of the active ones now have been around less than one year (this is a, what? 3-year-old project). They can delete or restore an entire page (with its edit history) and -- recently -- can ban a signed-in user for 24 hours. (It's only one day, right?) This temporary ban is really only supposed to be for emergencies, but Jimbo issue a Decree of Clemency for the bans of the last few weeks: let's start fresh!
I'm just as frightened by the emergence of a new government as anyone else, but I know a few things:
* Wikimedia will continue to run Wikipedia. * The text is all GPL'ed, so there's no way the encyclopedia can be "taken over" by commercial or ideological interests. * Everyone on the 2 committees has a proven track record of genuine concern for both the product and the process, i.e., the goal of creating a superb free encyclopedia and the goal of maintaining a pleasant "workplace" for volunteers.
Ed Poor, aka Uncle Ed
-----Original Message----- From: Tim Starling [mailto:ts4294967296@hotmail.com] Sent: Thursday, February 05, 2004 12:52 AM To: wikien-l@wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Re: unilateral bans of controversial users
Bjorn Lindqvist wrote:
I think further action is necessary. Either:
- Remove the feature. It wasn't there before and probably isn't
really needed now either.
It was implemented specifically to deal with Michael and others like him. It has been an invaluable tool in that respect.
- Kick the sysops using the feature in the wrong way. If you look at
Wikipedia:RfA it seems to be clear that admins are supposed to hold a higher standard than regular users. It therefore doesn't make sense that admins are allowed to make so many extremely critical errors and are escaping with at most, a slap on the wrist. Especially not while anon users arbitrarily can lose their editing powers and logged in users are only slightly more fairly judged.
Certainly this is the option I would favour. When I implemented my feature, I thought that policy would be enough to keep sysops in line. But I now realise that for a policy to be useful, a threat of punishment
is required. You can't expect people to follow the rules when there are no repercussions for stepping outside them.
I can understand Hephaestos' frustration. In fact, I'd be in favour of banning by a vote or community consensus, during this transitional period.
What we have at the moment on Wikipedia is anarchy. There is no coordinated way to deal with trolls, and sysops (and indeed developers) have free reign.
IMHO we need
* Empowerment of users allowing them to do things without developer help * Rules governing the use of powers * Structure to enforce the rules
But that's just me.
-- Tim Starling
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