If something is mandatory on Wikipedia, that means that if you want people to follow it you need to _convince_ them that a) it is mandatory, b) they should follow things that are mandatory.
Just like absolutely everything else on Wikipedia.
How can you "enforce" anything like that except by jawboning?
A "mandate," the dictionary says, is "An authoritative command or instruction." But what, exactly, does "authoritative" mean on Wikipedia?
Who's going to enforce these "mandates?" Is Jimbo Wales is personally going to micromanage discussions on talk pages? Are we going to restrict the "move" button to Bureaucrats?
To riff on Mark Twain (or perhaps it was Oscar Wilde, or Dorothy Parker):
How many mandatory policies do we have if we call the Manual of Style mandatory?
Answer: We have none, because calling a policy mandatory doesn't make it one.
This is exactly the problem of government: For any society with goals, how best to reach those goals? In the general social sense, the term used is "coersion," ie. use of violence (acted or implied) to gain influence. The authoritarian concept of "rule of law" is largely about shifting violence from the acted form to its implied form.
On a free, principled and entirely volunteer project, coersive methods are out of reasonable bounds, and IMHO the term "guidance" is preferable. On Wikipedia there has only been one accepted authority (Jimbo) and his continued defacto authority rests more on his egalitarian philosophy and organization capability than on any self-appointed titles etc. Otherwise people would just say "fork him" - ;-)
But now there seems to be a leadership gap on en.wikipedia -- where pencil rules written by ad-hoc concensus are generally unreviewable even by the Arbcom. In that context, yes, the notion of 'making people do stuff' seems rather rude and lacks any meaning. Even when there is community or committee consensus, if its consensus without responsiveness or rationality, then (not unlike our recent 'page views' rank on Alexa) a case of 'one step forward two steps back.'
SV
dpbsmith@verizon.net wrote: If something is mandatory on Wikipedia, that means that if you want people to follow it you need to _convince_ them that a) it is mandatory, b) they should follow things that are mandatory.
Just like absolutely everything else on Wikipedia.
How can you "enforce" anything like that except by jawboning?
A "mandate," the dictionary says, is "An authoritative command or instruction." But what, exactly, does "authoritative" mean on Wikipedia?
Who's going to enforce these "mandates?" Is Jimbo Wales is personally going to micromanage discussions on talk pages? Are we going to restrict the "move" button to Bureaucrats?
To riff on Mark Twain (or perhaps it was Oscar Wilde, or Dorothy Parker):
How many mandatory policies do we have if we call the Manual of Style mandatory?
Answer: We have none, because calling a policy mandatory doesn't make it one.
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steve v wrote:
But now there seems to be a leadership gap on en.wikipedia -- where pencil rules written by ad-hoc concensus are generally unreviewable even by the Arbcom. In that context, yes, the notion of 'making people do stuff' seems rather rude and lacks any meaning. Even when there is community or committee consensus, if its consensus without responsiveness or rationality, then (not unlike our recent 'page views' rank on Alexa) a case of 'one step forward two steps back.'
Rules, to be meaningful, need very broad support. The more so when the structures are highly complex. "Rules" here tend to be developed by small groups who happen to be interested in the subject matter at the time. They become valid because people follow the, not the reverse. It would be ideal to have a coherent and organized body of rules governing everything we do, but that is unattainable. If I go away from editing a topic for two years, and then come back I fully expect to become involved in discussions that may have taken place in the interim. I'm not going to argue everything; I will find some changes to be very positive even if I opposed them two years ago, but there are others where I will certainly re-open debate. It's important to be able to do that, because there are very few policies that should be unchangeable, or that should be carved into mandatory rock.
Leadership is more than saying, "this is the way it must be." Sometimes that is the only way to go, but a leader who does this needs to accept the consequences of such actions, and use that technique with great reservation. It requires patiently listening and giving weight to reasonable arguments without being intimidated by rule drones.
Ec