[Foundation-l] Jimbo's Sexual Image Deletions

[Anthony]

On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:33 AM, Samuel Klein <meta.sj at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Sat, May 8, 2010 at 8:13 AM, Andrew Garrett <agarrett at wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
> > This isn't an ideal situation. We should have a situation in which
> > Jimmy's technical power derives from the authority of the board of
> > trustees or from a community mandate, or we should have a situation in
> > which Jimmy does not have unlimited technical power.
>
> I don't think this is a technical issue at all.   Considering how
> flexible and reversible wiki-actions are, it seems eminently
> appropriate to me for the project founder to have 'unlimited technical
> power' on the projects -- just as you and all of our developers do, at
> a much higher level.
>

For what purpose?  The purpose for which the developers have this "technical
power" is obvious - they can't possibly do their work without it.  With
Wales, it's a power with no explicit purpose other than anachronistic
deference.

English Wikipedia has addressed this fluidly over the years:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Role_of_Jimmy_Wales
>

So long as the power of the founder flag includes control over that very
page, anything written on that page can't possibly be taken seriously.

(BTW, shouldn't Larry Sanger have a founder flag too?)