On Sep 25, 2005, at 3:09 AM, wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org wrote:
Why is this an emergency? Why not just email the guy and let the issue sit until tomorrow? Wikipedia will not fall because a couple school stubs didn't get undeleted for 24 hours.
Because the debate over schools has had very little to do with anything relating to actual articles for a long time. It is just an arena for an unpleasant sports event between two factions.
(Note: carefully chosen metaphor. No metaphorical human beings were killed or injured in the making of this metaphor).
The Wikipedian community seems to me to be the sort of community that really does rely on common goals and shared values.
It is unlike organizational structures that _assume_ that factionalism is the _norm_, and consequently are designed to measure the relative strength of factions with precision. Such structures rely on hierarchies, constitutions, parliamentary procedure, and voting.
Oldtimers: is the school struggle just par for the course, or does it represent an emerging and deepening _lack_ of consensus on important issues?
-- Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith@verizon.net "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print! Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/