Wikipedia can be considered an exercise in participatory democracy engaged in the task of creating an encyclopedia. Its purpose is not to refine and perfect particatory demococracy, but wiki software is premised on wide and more or less equal participation by the publics.
One may change that premise, but one should know that is what you are discussing doing.
Fred
From: Robert Dodier robert_dodier@yahoo.com Reply-To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2005 14:24:12 -0800 (PST) To: slimvirgin@gmail.com, English Wikipedia wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] agenda promotion, was: Re: Original Research versus Point of View
Since Wikipedia isn't an experiment in participatory democracy, there shouldn't be any problem in modifying the "anyone can edit anytime" policy, since it is not always serving the larger goal of creating an encyclopedia. My own proposal is that contentious pages (and only those) be controlled by editorial boards staffed by demonstrably boring bureaucrats. I'm sure there are a multitude of proposals -- I'd certainly like to hear about them.
For what it's worth, Robert Dodier