Marc Riddell wrote:
on 6/27/07 12:33 PM, Stan Shebs at stanshebs@earthlink.net wrote:
Marc Riddell wrote:
Or do you see anything that needs to be done that is not done today?
Full, active, day-to-day oversight of the Project.
Oh, I see - you mean somebody like Larry Sanger! :-)
That's way before before my time here. But from the history I have read, no
- not someone like him.
Larry Sanger was important in his own time. I see his job as having been getting something up and running out of nothing. That kind of leader would not work here any more. Too many highly experienced editors would resist it.
It's instructive to ponder that a person in your suggested role failed at it when WP was just 1/100 of its present size and complexity.
Perhaps the person failed, does that necessarily mean the role did? And, if the role he played did fail; perhaps the specifics of the role needed work.
A leader that gets bogged down in daily oversight wouldn't have any time left to be a leader. I will differ from Marc in one important respect. 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 does give all the answers on a silver platter; it guides the groups toward a real consensus that does not leave opposite sides of an issue at each other's throat.
Ec