On 02/05/07, Jeff Raymond jeff.raymond@internationalhouseofbacon.com wrote:
Andrew Lih wrote:
Yes, and during this entire crisis there were over a dozen active admins in the IRC channel double checking, sharing info, asking for advice, reacting to the onslaught and watching each others' backs.
Yes, wonderful, a whole bunch of people in an IRC channel (probably the private one) with no real accountability or oversight other than to eachother making decisions based on law. Great idea, folks.
I urge you to read and respond to my post earlier today about this precise problem:
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2007-May/070335.html
The Tyranny Of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman - http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html - is one of my favourite essays on emergent hierarchies: if you pretend there's no hierarchy, one will emerge out of your sight and bite you in the backside. (I'm unconvinced its solutions, particularly electing everyone, are directly applicable here - just about every process on English Wikipedia even resembling a vote rapidly turns into an insular committee or a lynch mob.)
There are those who consider cabalism as a bad thing on English Wikipedia and the source of all problems. Unfortunately, with 4330 frequent editors and 43,000 occasional editors a month, no-one is going to know everyone. So people will cluster with those they do know just to get anything done. Pretending this can be suppressed, and particularly pretending this can be suppressed by suppressing talking about it, is denial and avoidance.
- d.