Marc Riddell wrote:
on 6/27/07 7:20 PM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Rather than needing a strong leader I would prefer to say that we need strong leadership. Embodying leadership in the person of one leader can be very distracting. It's what leaves someone like Jimbo as the revered god-king who must have the answers to every proplem we can imagine. It's demanding a physical impossibility. Good leadership <snip> guides the groups toward a real
consensus that does not leave opposite sides of an issue at each other's throat.
Ray,
Following your thoughts here, "good leadership" seems a bit nebulous to me. In the context of this medium, how do we achieve it in a practical sense?
Good leadership will likely require a group effort. Those who feel the need for reform need to look at where they have common ground, and build from there. Some things that need to be reatified may seem obvious, but such ratifications can strenghthen policy.
We have core principles, but have we ratified them? They are embodied in five pillars, but how much of that page is really the five pillars, and how much of it is elaboration that may or may not do justice to the principles? We know that the five pillars themselves are unchangeable, but what degree of support must the elaboration need?
The leadership group can be made up of people who have an ability to be flexible in their thinking. It can review a policy and propose a rewritten version with a cleaned up text, which must then be ratified or rejected by Wikipedians. I don't think that "electing" such a group would be helpful; the whole process of elections tends to bring out those who want to see their favourites in the group, rather than those who are more concerned with finding consensus.
Ec.