Steve Bennett wrote:
On 1/11/08, Bryan Derksen
<bryan.derksen(a)shaw.ca> wrote:
page creation - a developer unilaterally flips a
switch behind the
scenes that changes how Wikipedia works, and then this is immediately
declared the status quo and now a "consensus" is needed in order to
Should there be some general policy where "controversial" code changes
(as defined by some petition of angsty editors) are automatically
rolled back pending further debate?
Perhaps. Personally, I'm just concerned about the apparent existence of
a double standard. If developers (or other lone users) can change things
at will but the general Wikipedia community needs to establish
"consensus" to change them back, naturally there's going to be a strong
imbalance of influence there since consensus is often hard to achieve.
I'm not sure exactly what the balance of influence _should_ be, but
considering how the perceived (and also real) behind-the-scenes
cliquishness of Wikipedia has been harming us recently this doesn't seem
like the right approach. Volunteers don't appreciate being dictated to,
especially not after they've been told that they're supposed to have a
say in how things operate.