On 06/03/2008, Brock Weller brock.weller@gmail.com wrote:
I'm one hundred percent with slim here. I joined in that same 2004 window, when we enculturated new comers, brought editors into the fold and we all shared purpose and goals.
Still do for the most part.
As much as I hate melodramatic comments, we need to start looking at ways to save our project here, because we just got slapped in the face with the reality that we're not only not on different pages here, but our books are staging fights against each other.
Nah. A few of the political power blocks going head to head is situation normal. Jimbo's actions are annoying but not something the community at large can be expected to do much about.
Jimmy may have fucked up, it really looks like he has, but thats simply a sideshow to our larger problem: our community simply doesn't exist as a whole anymore.
Well no. 2004 we could just about have qualified as tribal you might not have know every regular editor but you knew someone who knew someone who knew them. In terms of societies our numbers are now in the chiefdom stage. That means that you will not know most people. The number of steps between you and them will get longer and more strained. There are a number of effects of this:
Sub communities. Sub communities have always existed but have become more important. Community for editors might once have meant everyone know it means the people who hang out in the same areas of wikipedia as you.
Conflict there will be fewer people that both sides know and respect. To an extent sub communities counteract this since when a conflict occurs within a sub community such a person is likely to exist. When they occur across sub community however we have a problem. Fortunately due to editing patterns such conflicts will be uncommon.
Information flow: all those internal mailing lists and the like. It is inevitable that certain types of information will become monoplised. I am not saying this is a good or bad thing.
Monopoly of force. To an extent this has always existed. Admins have the software ability to win any conflict. However as adminship becomes a bigger deal access to such force becomes harder to obtain and an admin class starts to form that has a greater degree of separation from the editing class
So what do do. Monopoly of force is best dealt with by making "you do not use admin tools in an editing conflict you are involved in" into an absolute. No excuses regardless of the rightness or otherwise of the action in the grand scheme of things
Information flow best dealt with by making "you do not use privileged information (stuff from internal-I OTRS etc) in an editing conflict you are involved in" into an absolute.
Splitting into Sub communities. Accept that this is unstoppable. This being the case we will need to find ways to make sure than conflicts between members of different sub communities don't turn into conflicts between those sub communities. We will need to find a way to rehabilitate problematical sub communities and finally find ways to make sure the lone mavericks can co-exist peacefully with the sub communities.