[Foundation-l] transparency or translucency?

[James Rigg]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 8:00 PM, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> 2009/1/10 James Rigg <jamesrigg1974 at 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..."