on 3/22/07 10:24 AM, Zoney at zoney.ie@gmail.com wrote:
On 22/03/07, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
We have a group of friends working under "rough consensus and running code" and decision-making is highly distributed and what may appear to be lines of authority are often merely lines of respect and thoughtfulness.
--Jimbo
In my three years on Wikipedia, the latter two and a half as an Admin, I've seen this more often than not (and getting to be more so) devolve into the most vocal and participating contributors deciding things as they see fit (even if say, they see something as NPOV, it may not be). The most vocal and participating members may or may not be in the right, and where there are differences of opinion, those who are right will not necessarily be the majority (or even large/medium majority; "consensus" as that seems to be termed on Wikipedia).
Being right is not a subjective thing. As an encyclopaedia we are supposed to be in the business of truthful content.
It's a whole other world of messiness then when we aren't talking merely about Wikipedia's content, but formulating the principles and guidelines on which the content and project is created and managed.
Zoney
Catching up on some past posts.
Zoney,
This is an excellent message, and one I agree with completely. The "principles and guidelines" we develop within WP make up a part of an "ethic" we must develop and staunchly maintain.
This ethic is not something you choose from a list. Personally, our own set of ethics evolve over time as our learning, beliefs, experiences and sense of self reconcile and eventually merge. On a group level, the ethic is established by the core individuals creating that group. Then, this ethic becomes a part of the motivation for others to join the group.
As for Wikipedia, I came to it because of the work it was doing, but I came too late to the group to really grasp what the core ethic was that helped form it. I have since, by way of this List, been trying to grasp a sense of what that ethic is.
I'm learning.
Marc Riddell