Kelly Martin wrote:
Anyone who doesn't realize that there are influence structures in Wikipedia isn't paying attention. If you want to move up in influence, it helps to be known, and known well, to those who already have it. This is true whether people with influence are selected by appointment or by election.
And those who think this is a bad thing, an avoidable thing or something we should pretend doesn't happen are blinding themselves and heading for trouble. A hierarchy will happen whether you like it or not, because humans are involved; politics starts with two or more people in a room, anywhere. Pretending it's not there makes it poisonous, not nonexistent.
This article, 'The Tyranny Of Structurelessness' talks about the myth of no hierarchy in the 1970s feminist movement and the demons it raises, and reading it I find it vastly applicable in genera to ad-hoc and activist movementsl:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html
If you don't have a structure then one will form out of your sight and bite you in the arse. "If the movement is to move beyond these elementary stages of development, it will have to disabuse itself of some of its prejudices about organisation and structure. There is nothing inherently bad about either of these. They can be and often are misused, but to reject them out of hand because they are misused is to deny ourselves the necessary tools to further development. We need to understand why 'structurelessness' does not work."
If you don't want cabals, you don't achieve that by acting as though any three editors talking to each other are OMG WTF BBQ CABAL!1!!!
- d.
On 10/26/05, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/structurelessness.html
If you don't have a structure then one will form out of your sight and bite you in the arse.
An interesting point, and a good read. I certainly don't agree with all of Freeman's statements, but her Principles of Democratic Structuring at the end are rather good. Working out how this might work in a wiki setting is a worthy exercise.
1 Delegation of specific authority to specific individuals for specific tasks by democratic procedures. If people are selected to do a task, preferably after expressing an interest or willingness to do it, they have made a commitment which cannot easily be ignored.
2 Requiring all those to whom authority has been delegated to be responsible to all those who selected them. This is how the group has control over people in positions of authority. Individuals may exercise power, but it is the group that has the ultimate say over how the power is exercised.
3 Distribution of authority among as many people as is reasonably possible. This prevents monopoly of power and requires those in positions of authority to consult with many others in the process of exercising it. It also gives many people an opportunity to have responsibility for specific tasks and thereby to learn specific skills.
4 Rotation of tasks among individuals. Responsibilities which are held too long by one person, formally or informally, come to be seen as that person's 'property' and are not easily relinquished or controlled by the group.
5 Allocation of tasks along rational criteria. Ability, interest and responsibility have got to be the major concerns in such selection. 6 Diffusion of information to everyone as frequently as possible.
7 Equal access to resources needed by the group. A member who maintains a monopoly over a needed resource (like a printing press or a darkroom owned by a husband) can unduly influence the use of that resource. Skills and information are also resources. Members' skills and information can be equally available only when members are willing to teach what they know to others.
++SJ
David Gerard wrote:
And those who think this is a bad thing, an avoidable thing or something we should pretend doesn't happen are blinding themselves and heading for trouble. A hierarchy will happen whether you like it or not, because humans are involved; politics starts with two or more people in a room, anywhere. Pretending it's not there makes it poisonous, not nonexistent.
If you don't have a structure then one will form out of your sight and bite you in the arse. "If the movement is to move beyond these elementary stages of development, it will have to disabuse itself of some of its prejudices about organisation and structure. There is nothing inherently bad about either of these. They can be and often are misused, but to reject them out of hand because they are misused is to deny ourselves the necessary tools to further development. We need to understand why 'structurelessness' does not work."
It happens repeatedly in many circumstances. People don't participate because they see an organization as "political" in whatever the worst sense of that word may be. By failng to participate they allow the politics to happen, and they become part of the problem.
Ec