On 12/02/07, Timwi timwi@gmx.net wrote:
You're also forgetting that Wikipedia is not the only wiki, and that MediaWiki is not the only wiki engine. Most other wiki engines do not have an "admin" user level at all, and last I checked the Pattern Repository was still working just fine.
As much as it saddens me to do so, I have to make a correction on that point. A couple of years back, we started getting our first dedicated abusive users on the WikiWikiWeb, after a decade of largely peaceful existence. Since then, Ward has implemented a steward privilege level with certain administrative abilities, issued to some specific invited users (full disclosure: including me). They deal with the occasional odd extreme case that WhyWikiWorks[1] can't deal with.
I think the PPR community has been lucky over the years to have not attracted the attention of the fringe too much, probably because the we have a very narrow scope. A generalist site such as Wikipedia is going to appeal to a much wider audience, and draw more fire as a consequence. Still, that it took over ten years for us to have to implement an "admin" user level says a lot about the strength of the wiki principle.
[1] http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?WhyWikiWorks - relevant to a large part of this thread.