We have had the similar kind of discussion at svwiki, where an obviously not rightous (obvious to most of us, at least) block was applied and re-applied three times by one particular admin, and lifted three times by three different admins. Some peoples main concern, and these were people I highly respect, was that the "taboo" of lifting blocks applied by other admins would now be gone. While I saw that as something healthy, others did not and pointed out how good some trolls are at manipulating the community making others believe they have been wronged - removing of this "taboo" would make troll control more difficult. While I can understand that standpoint, I don't believe this can be a healthy position in the long run.
/Habj
On 11/3/05, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Mark Williamson wrote:
The problem seems to lie in smaller, more authoritarian communities.
Any Wiki could turn into a dictatorship with the policy we currently have in place. The bureaucrats get to make all of the decisions. Of course, they can be voted out, but I don't think it's likely that people would attempt to organise a vote against someone who has probably already scared them away.
The important thing is to find some sort of balance. A bureaucrat does need the freedom to make decisions and act, often unilaterally, on them. He needs to pay attention to his community and use that to guide his actions. There will nevertheless be times when he will act in a way contrary to the community's wishes. That is not inherently wrong, but the bureaucrat proceeds at his own peril. If he overuses that power he will face repeated complaints, and in extreme situations a putsch. Occassional complaints go with the territory. To a certain extent I think that communities appreciate a bureaucrat who can be fair in his decisiveness, and who can take some conflicted issues in a particular direction just to be done with it.
Thus it seems to me that every Wiki should have two or more bureaucrats.
Sometimes, but that is the wrong reason for a second bureaucrat. We don't want the situation of a project with two bureaucrats that are constantly in opposition to each other. As long as a bureaucrat's duties are very light the only reason for a second bureaucrat is to have someone available during extended absences.
Ec
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