>>> On 08/05/07, Matthew Brown
<morven(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> We're not professional. Except for a tiny bunch of people who work
>>>> for the Foundation, we're all volunteers and our time is not
>>>> especially coordinated. Wikipedia is what it is, and part of that
is
>>>> that we've grown faster than
our organization has.
>>>>
>>>> Zoney wrote:
>>> The project should be managed
professionally if it is indeed a
serious
>>> project.
>>>
>>>
> on 5/9/07 12:22 AM, Ray Saintonge at saintonge(a)telus.net wrote:
>
>
>> Absolutely not!!!
>> Marc Riddell wrote:
> Why not, Ray?
> on 5/9/07 8:51 PM, Ray Saintonge at
saintonge(a)telus.net wrote:
The project has had over the last six years
proven success despite being
run almost exclusively by amateurs.
Being "run" by, or being "constructed" by - there is a big
difference.
And,
six years is the blink of an eye when thinking long term.
It's contents have stood up well in
comparisons with what competitive products there are, and where errors
and inaccuracies have been noted it has had a remarkable ability for
self-correction.
I am in no way referring to the contents of the encyclopedia; that is the
creative, living part of the project  and that part is superb. I am
presenting to the extremely weak structure that is supposed to provide
this
living part with strength, leadership and shelter. In fact, if the
strength
of the structure were equal to that of its content, there would be no need
for this conversation.
The power of the project is not in the product, but in the process.
I could not possibly disagree with more. When the process is more
important
than the product it creates, you have an exercise. Is the process of
writing
it more important than the poem?
In it's crudest manifestation a professional is one who is paid to do a
job. It is also a person who has "paid his dues" to the established
order, and now has the credentials that permit him to repeat past
mistakes.
As for the definition of ³professional², I place far less emphasis on the
money being exchanged, and much more on the quality of the product
produced.
Wikipedia, like many creative entities, must consist of two ³professional²
groups, those who create the product, and those who provide the structure
and leadership for the other group to function within. In WP, the former
group is very much alive and doing very well, the latter one (if it exists
at all) is in critical condition, bordering on moribund.
Wikipedia, at present, is a "community" in the loosest definition of the
term. Rather, it is a construction crew. But, most significantly, it is a
construction crew without a foreman. And they are working, essentially,
with
only the most basic set of blueprints - both of the project, and of the
company they are working for. What working plans they do have can change
at
the slightest whim of one or more of the workers. And, what started out as
a
cottage has become the Twin Towers. And, like the Towers, its collapse
will
be the result of the failure of internal support. But, unlike the Towers,
its destruction will not come from something that occurs from without, but
from what doesn't occur from within.
At the risk of offending and/or alienating those on the crew with
authority
problems, the company has chosen to allow the crew to fend for itself.
I have lived in communes in the past; some still flourish today. Its
members
are the definition of anti-authority thinking. But the ones that succeed
are
led by persons just as anti-authority in their beliefs as the rest, but
have
the interpersonal skills and trust of the community to lead.
Wikipedia is not what it started out as - but it is trying to function as
though it is.
I had a difficult time putting this post together. Then I discovered it
was
because I was weary of the subject  and I¹ve only been here a little over
a
year. Do you realize how many times the issue of ³leadership² has been
discussed on the Talk Pages and this List!? How many times the subject of
³who¹s in charge² and ³who is Jimmy Wales² and what role does he play in
all
of this, has been rehashed?
We can flail, commiserate, bemoan, intellectualize, agree, disagreeÅ
forever. But, until a leader (that foreman I referred to) is hired,
appointed, anointed (or whatever the Foundation does) to actively, and
with
authority, direct the construction project on a day-to-day basis, the
building under construction is a disaster waiting to happen.
For once, I feel that I am in complete agreement with Marc. Consensus
doesn't cut it when you have a thousand participants in the discussion
rather than a hundred, unless you want to resort to voting - which is
effectively a tyranny of the majority.
We need some leaders who can steer this project. Jimbo used to be something
of a leader, involved quite a bit in how we crafted our policies, but he's
since stepped back and is mainly involved in PR and the occasional policy
change for PR purposes (e.g. banning anons from creating new articles). We
don't have anyone with a vision of where we are going, and who can steer us
and our policies towards that direction.
I'm not saying the community shouldn't be involved in decision-making. But
at the same time, I'm not confident that the community can come to a
consensus on many of the tough questions facing Wikipedia, because of how
controversial these issues are. Whenever there's such a hot-button issue,
it's had to come to a point where there are people violating our policies
and causing a lot of pain before we can settle the question - thanks to the
Arbcom.
Indecision is not always better than making a decision. I'd rather we come
to a conclusion on some issues which have been troubling us for a long time
- e.g. our deletion processes, our process of granting adminship, how we
deal with BLPs, etc. - because even if the conclusion is not to my liking, I
have confidence that if we have leader like Jimbo who appreciates the need
for change when something isn't working, we will be able to fix the mistakes
of our decisions in the long run.
At the moment, we are paralysed on tough questions because when consensus
runs into a wall, there's no alternative left. This paralysis is, I think,
not entirely desirable, and the only way to end it is to introduce another
form of decisionmaking supplementary and/or complementary to the community
which can act when consensus doesn't work.
Johnleemk