[WikiEN-l] Re: [Wikipedia-l] Educating newcomers

[Toby Bartels]

Erik Moeller wrote:

>In a voting process, the discourse period can be time-limited. Of
>course, people could continue to discuss the issue on a dedicated page, but an
>enforcable decision could be made before that.

And the same thing is true of a consensus process.
We discuss until a consensus is reached an implement that;
The Cunctator (or whoever ^_^) can continue to talk forever afterwards.
(For example, Cunc still talks about getting rid of banning,
despite the clear consensus in favour of banning.
If we voted on banning instead, the result would be the same.)

>>Agreed, but IMO, that's exactly what *you* are trying to do ^_^.

>Not at all, the idea is to decentralize power, and thereby reduce the
>potential for abuse. Voting seems to me very much complementary to the
>wiki idea.

Voting seems quite antithetical to wiki if you ask me.
(Not completely antithetical, of course;
the usual web page written by a single author
is even more far off from either of these.)
And I've never understood how decentralisation will result.
What *would* help with decentralising administrators' power
is mav's idea of automatic old hand status.


-- Toby