[WikiEN-l] Re: Lir and his clones

[Ray Saintonge]

Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:

>I used to think that Lir would change. I also used to
>believe in Santa Claus (acutally I never did, but you
>get my point). Lir will never change.
>
Many kids stop believing in Santa Claus long before they let their 
parents know that they've stopped believing.  That's an economic 
self-interest decision!

>In all of the other wikis (except for the ones modeled
>after us), there is no "supreme-dictator-for-life" (as
>you put it, perhaps humorsly, in a previous post).
>Most other wikis despise that we have one person
>running the whole thing. I don't think we should keep
>doing your unpopular decisions just because you own
>the servers. When you created Wikipedia, you also gave
>up control of it. We are a community, not governed by
>one person, but by everyone. On many of the About,
>FAQ, and similar pages, you state that Wikipedia is an
>anarchy, but that really is not true. As long as you
>unilaterally make decisions like this, wikipedia will
>never be a true anarchy, always a dictatorship.
>--LittleDan
>
Dumping the dictator is not always the panacea that many expect.  Those 
unpopular decisions are often necessary for the well being of the 
collective.  An unpopular decision can be much better than no decision 
at all.  What killed the Paris Commune of 1871 was too much democracy; 
it prevented the communards from mounting an effective defence.  There's 
a paradox in the idea that a benevolent dictatorship is what allows an 
anarchy to flourish.  An openly democratic system is fertile ground for 
cliques, and the tyranny of minorities in decision making positions.

Ec