On 06/03/2008, Brock Weller <brock.weller(a)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.
--
geni