Oldak Quill wrote:
On 24/07/06, Stan Shebs <shebs(a)apple.com> wrote:
To be a little more constructive :-), I see the
leadership vacuum
too. I think there are many editors who would like to lead in one
way or another, in fact many of them are on this mailing list at
least partly in the hopes of exerting some influence.
I think the lack of leadership is good. It promotes community
involvement and it proves to new users that they can help in a big
way.
Not really. Without prejudicing the specific tasks that leaders take on
some measure of leadership is needed to prevent total chaos. Some
newbies feel completely overwhelmed by the size of Wikipedia, and often
need guidance to get them going.
But I don't
think there's a whole lot of incentive or reward for
leadership, so attempts tend to be brief and unsuccessful. Even if
one manages to organize several like-minded editors into a
cooperative effort, the newest of newbies can still come in and
disrupt, oftentimes with the support of onlookers shrieking about
cabals, and the would-be leader sees his/her investment in WP come
to naught. It's as if you were to get elected as prime minister,
but any recent immigrant could unilaterally nullify any action you
took and blacken your name in the papers - who would even bother to
run for the position?
I see the equality between the old boys and the newbies as one of
Wikipedia's greatest assets for the reasons I state above. It prevents
anyone from becoming over-mighty and abusing their power and damaging
Wikipedia. Leaders shouldn't come to the job because of the perks and
benefits - they should fight for it because they truly want it and
believe in the project.
Not all leaders adhere to the importance of equality. I admit that the
dedicated vandal fighters can't keep that up too long without it
affecting their view of human nature. I don't think that any of our
leaders are in it for the tangible perks, but the intangible ones can
still be a motivating power. Sometimes the worst leaders are the one
who want it too much. Having them fight for for a leadership role
because they truly want it is downright scary.. The good leaders are
very patient.
WP's
anarchy doesn't always work in the service of the goal of
producing the free encyclopedia, but with so many anarchists
ideologically committed to working against effective governance,
it's hard even to discuss how the situation might be changed for
the better.
A bigger priority, IMO, is making the Foundation more democratic and
answerable to the community while also preventing momentary trends and
fads from destroying the project (such as might occur if the
Foundation were too democratic).
Yes, I support open accountability, but "democracy" has become the kind
of buzz-word that worries me. It can't be imposed, and it can't be
brought to people until they are ready to accept it and grasp it. A
psephocracy is a mere shadow of democracy.
Ec