On Dec 3, 2007 5:26 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
And *finally* finally, if people do not trust ArbCom they are welcome to find a project whose administrative structures they do trust.
On Mon, 3 Dec 2007 16:45:18 -0500, Anthony wikimail@inbox.org wrote:
I mean, in the end, it's a private project to build an encyclopaedia and not an experiment in democracy.
It's a *public* project to build an encyclopedia, not a private one.
Really?
This may be a difference in how one defines public vs. private. My definition of a public project includes some enforceable right to participate.
I was going on the fact that it's a public charity. Different definitions, I guess.
I guess it's not legally enforceable, but Jimmy Wales had this to say about the right to participate, and he doesn't seem to have retracted it yet (I'm sure he gets pointed to it from time to time):
<blockquote>Newcomers are always to be welcomed. There must be no cabal, there must be no elites, there must be no hierarchy or structure which gets in the way of this openness to newcomers. Any security measures to be implemented to protect the community against real vandals (and there are real vandals, who are already starting to affect us), should be implemented on the model of "strict scrutiny".
"Strict scrutiny" means that any measures instituted for security must address a compelling community interest, and must be narrowly tailored to achieve that objective and no other.
For example: rather than trust humans to correctly identify "regulars", we must use a simple, transparent, and open algorithm, so that people are automatically given full privileges once they have been around the community for a very short period of time. The process should be virtually invisible for newcomers, so that they do not have to do anything to start contributing to the community.</blockquote>
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/User:Jimbo_Wales/Statement_of...
Seems very apropos, actually.