On 12/2/05, Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com wrote:
I'm sick of the high turnover of good contributors too. We need to fix that if we want to encourage a productive work environment. This bullshit has got to stop so we can concentrate on creating the world's best encyclopedia. Openness is a means to an end. Nothing more. Crackpots, POV pushers, and trolls are not welcome.
And it does get tiring. Perhaps -- and only perhaps -- we have modeled our "judicial" system too much on systems which are intentionally meticulous; too much on an ideal society than on an internet encyclopedia. There are some similarities, but the differences are fairly broad -- the maximum penalty we can enforce is prohibition from participation, pretty minor in the scale of life. The overriding goal is NOT to make sure every dog has their day and that everybody gets a "fair trial", but smooth moving of the site. I hate to say that it is our primary goal to keep the trains running on time, but we're talking about a website here, not Italy. Tilting the balance of "good faith" in favor of 1. long-standing and valued contributors with good editing records, and 2. towards a goal of expedited speed in decisions (with the possibility of appeal, of course) rather than comprehensiveness in assessment, might be a good thing.
What are the consequences? Both systems have a possibility of failure. Both could potentially drive away good editors. However the retention of long-term editors might be more afforded in the latter system, and that might be a goal worth pursuing in and of itself.
FF