Jimmy Wales wrote:

I remember when, once upon a time, my mail was bouncing for a day, and all the mailing lists automatically marked me as delivery disabled. I re-enabled the major lists, but overlooked this one, which had at that time almost no traffic I think.

Then, I thought that discussion here had fizzled.

It had fizzled. It took a little bit of concerted effort to get sustained conversations going.

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But when we collectively, consciously or unconsciously, only discuss policy issues "in his presence", our behavior gives the impression of Jimbo as a MeatBall:GodKing. A number of people have criticized the way these mailing lists operate, and some object to participating as a result.

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I think the mailing lists are useful, but we need to be aware of appearances and not reinforce the image of a cabal.

I do agree with this, but what should we do? The mailing lists are wide open to the public, public archives, easy subscription, unmoderated. If my participation causes people to say that the lists are like a "King's Court", what do you recommend that I do about it?

I don't have a recommendation for what you should do, because I think the problem is not with your participation, but with our collective behavior, as I indicated. "Our" including myself and everybody _except_ you. It's not just how you behave that determines whether you're a GodKing, it's how we behave toward you. (Though your disavowal of that status is helpful, and it is reassuring to know you have plans on how to transfer responsibilities to the community.)

The thing that prompted my comments was the differences I could observe between this list, which you hadn't been reading, and the other lists where you clearly are reading and participating. I'm sure people have also observed how some threads take on a much greater importance simply because you're participating in the thread. Some of that, I believe, is that people fail to see the point in raising and discussing issues when you're not obviously part of the conversation. We need to be more willing to discuss (not necessarily decide) issues without your "presence" to assist us. It's the difference between being a community that deliberates over the issues, with a leader to assist in the decision-making process, and being a bunch of courtiers who jockey with each other in order to present their petitions to the king.

You don't wish to be a GodKing. I don't wish to be part of a cabal. But wishing alone does not make it so - part of what determines these things is the perspectives of outsiders. I agree with you that the mailing lists are as accessible as we can make them, and that deciding not to participate can be counterproductive. Part of what makes us "elitist" is having people avoid joining us because we're supposedly elitist. But we still have to keep their perspective in mind, and do our best not to reinforce such views. The problem will not go away, we must learn to live with it.

Anyway, this has become sort of a longish sermon, and unfortunately my solutions have more of sentiment than specificity, so I'll cut it off here.

--Michael Snow