On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 8:00 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
2009/1/10 James Rigg jamesrigg1974@googlemail.com:
I'm not questioning here whether or not there are good reasons for sometimes being non-transparent and hierarchical, I'm just saying that it's interesting that, contrary to its founding ideals, and probably also to how many people think, or like to think, Wikipedia is run, it is not run in a fully transparent and non-hierarchical way.
Tens of thousands of active editors a month. That such a thing could run without bureaucracy defies rational thought.
Also, you can't actually stop people talking amongst themselves. See "Tyranny of Structurelessness."
- d.
First, I actually began the email to which you are replying with: "I'm not questioning here whether or not there are good reasons for sometimes being non-transparent and hierarchical..."
Second, re tens of thousands of editors requiring a bureaucracy, again, that may, or may not, be true, but the point I'm simply making here is that I've *recently* read in several different places that Wikipedia *is* non-hierarchical, when this isn't true. For example, Jimmy Wales states on his user page:
"There must be no cabal, there must be no elite, there must be no hierarchy or structure..."